Transformers: Dark of the Moon
I had originally thought that I had blown my opportunity to see this one. Then, out of nowhere and due to what must some kind of record slow/shitfest of an early September movie release schedule, there popped back into theaters Transformers 3. So, I had the opportunity to go see a lengthy movie I didn't need to see to know it was going to suck. And before I go any further let me just assure you, it did suck.
But let's rewind a bit. After the first two Transformers movies and the absolute mess that was the G.I. Joe movie, I had feared that the next logical step in the continued brutalization of my childhood would be the release of a home video capturing the reanimated corpse of Mr. Rogers beheading Big Bird and having his way with the neck hole. Then they announced the imminent release of Transformers 3... with the absolutely idiotic title of Transformers: Dark of the Moon... and I thought that maybe the Mr. Rogers video wouldn't have been so bad. To a degree. That said, Transformers was a horrible movie- typical of Michael Bay- but not so horrifically bad that you'd root to see one of your very early childhood heroes murder another one of your very early childhood heroes and then do unspeakable things to its lifeless body. So it has that going for it.
I wonder if it makes any sense to go on with this entry. The movie sucked. A lot of movies suck. The reason that it seems to sting so much is that the premise- that being Transformers in general, not any of the 13-year-old boy's wet dreams that Bay drew up in place of a script for his movies- had promise. And, Transformers was probably my favorite cartoon growing up. I loved Jazz. I wanted to be Jazz. And then, Michael Bay horked all over Jazz and his friends. By extension, he horked on me. The ass. But, I suppose I'm taking this all too seriously. What does it matter that Michael Bay made terrible movies out of (what I suppose was) a kinda corny cartoon show? It really doesn't matter... except that he tapped so well into the groins of 13-year-old boys that no one in their right mind would dare try to reboot the franchise for fear of it failing in comparison (I mean, in a strictly monetary sense). Oh well, I suppose there's always Go-Bots (FUCK!!!).
So, I'm not really sure it matters enough to spell out why the movie was so horrible. In a sense, it can only be compared to the other Transformers movies, G.I. Joe and maybe some of Bay's other movies. That's how bad it sucked. It can only properly be gauged in comparison with its peers. And, to that point, trying to decide which Michael Bay movie was the best is like trying to decide which of your last five shits smelled the best. What does it matter if one or two of them wouldn't cause anyone with a functioning olfactory bulb not convulse or retch, they all still smell distinctly like shit. And so it goes for Bay's movies.
For what it's worth, this wasn't the worst Transformers movie. I can't remember which of 1 or 2 I thought was worse. Probably 2, because I could at least process enough of what I was seeing to know that it was utter lunacy.... in 1 it was all such a messy blur that I suppose that in between seizures I was willing to give Bay the benefit of the doubt. At any rate, perhaps because it had no where to go but up, Transformers: Dark of the Moon was not the worst of the worst movies ever made. Nice compliment, eh?
So why wasn't it? Bay did, after all, decide to add a whole extra dimension of useless shitty-ness when he opted for the ever-ubiquitous and ever-gratuitous 3D format. I suppose it wasn't the worst movie ever made because it did have some semi-decent action sequences. Annnnnnnd, yep, that's the ONLY thing it had going for it. I should point out that the semi-decent action sequences encompassed only 15-20 minutes of the film's 157 minute total running time. The rest was garbage. Which means that in all likelihood it had 15-20 minutes more of semi-decent footage than the other two Transformers movies (and their demented cousin, G.I. Joe, the rise of Cobra... at least G.I. Joe had an actor the quality of Joseph Gordon-Levitt in it... Transformers 3 tries to go that route but instead managed to add a clearly flailing, rapidly devolving John Malkovich. Malkovich seems to be reeking of desperation as he tries to stay relevant whereas I'm pretty certain that Gordon-Levitt was just hoping to have the opportunity to swim in a pool filled with greenbacks a la Scrooge McDuck) combined.
So, where does Transformers go wrong? Well, for one, it was utter slow, boring, and needlessly moralistic for much of the movie. There was too much damn talking. Needless talking. Ugh. Sam (Shia LaBoeuf) continues to get girls waaaaaaaaay out of his schluppy league. He also continues to be a useless idiot- which the movie even recognizes by making his character- despite BOTH his previous efforts in saving the world- an unemployed/unemployable sad sack of shit. What else? They keep bringing back the quirky-to-the-point-of-bringing-the-audience-into-rage-induced-fits characters including Sam's parents (had no right to survive the first or second movie), and John Turturro's dispensable G-man gone rogue who should have just gone period. And, because you can never have too much of a bad thing, they added Malkovich to the quirky/annoying mix as Sam's eventual employer. Here, Malkovich decides that imitation is indeed the most sincere form of flattery as he decides to ape Turturro's stale take. Oh and the plot sucked. But that's to be expected by now, isn't it? But this- hopefully- is the grand shit-stained finale right? So they decided to bring everything to a head on one of the flimsiest turning points they could. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's character (the one true surprise of the movie is that she is not the mute bimbo-in-distress that Bay would have you believe based on the film's trailer... which is actually a relief... no one really deserves that kind of a role.) manages to play Jedi mind tricks on the crippled (and oddly hooded) Megatron in order to get him to sabotage his grand plan before it had come to fruition. Yes, this is the same Megatron who knew he was too fucked up to see the thing through by himself. So rather than doing what the Megatron of the cartoon would do- use Sentinel Prime.. or whatever the hell his name was... to get the job done THEN take him out, Bay's 13 year old cadre of script writers decided that Megatron could be tricked into undermining himself despite all the work he put into seeing his plan come together. You know why they went that route? Because that's how 13-year-olds think. (I suppose I should have done one of those Spoiler alert bits.. but then... I kind of just jump right into it, don't? Doesn't make a ton of sense out of context does it? Nope. Doesn't make much sense in context either for that matter). Ok, right, you get it, the movie sucked.
What I can't rag on it about that plenty of other people DID rag on Bay about was the death toll featured in the movie. Bundles of innocent people bite it in the movie. That has to be the only realistic aspect of ANY of the Transformers movies. What do people think would happen in the throes of a hostile alien takeover? Innocent lives will be spared just because? No, hostile aliens would obliterate people, I would imagine, particularly if they got the sense that the easiest way to kill morale and any notion of humanity staging some kind of fight is to obliterate large portions of the populace. If hostile aliens did indeed invade Earth, I imagine a large chunk of the population is going to bite it. Naturally. So way to go, Michael Bay, there's your blind-squirrel-grabbing-a-nut moment for the decade. Way to bring the realism to a small portion of your otherwise horrible movie.
Grade: F+
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