Film Review | Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Complain all you want about director Michael Bay’s latest outing in alien-robotville. You can say it’s too long, too noisy, that Shia LeBeouf isn’t star material or that Rosie Huntington-Whiteley isn’t a match for Megan Fox. Truth is, Transformers 3 is the best film of a big money-making franchise based on toys.

If you don’t like it, it doesn’t care. Transformers 3 doesn’t need your money, old timer.

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon’s earnings are, so far, less at the US box office than the second installment but more than the first – a disappointing result given that it’s shot in 3D. That said, the 3D design is not as effective as, say, Pina or Drive Angry 3D – two disparate films that showed audiences exactly how 3D can enhance or make a storyline.

Transformers 3 is designed to be as distracting and as sexually and visually arousing as any film that came before. There’s plenty of high octane vehicles, a bit of parkour (courtesy of Shia’s stunt butt), great fun in swanky places plus a supporting cast that could float the Titanic. Inside this film is a huge treasure trove of goodies. You can find these if you get past your prejudices.

PLOT: T3D opens with the discovery of an alien presence on the moon, cleverly covered by the real life loss of communication to the crew of Apollo 11. It’s a the Ark, the Cybertrons’ space vehicle which had enough know-how onboard that it could have ended the war between the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons. Back to the present, The Autobots, being good guys, are now helping the US military. This comes in handy when some alien machinery turns up in Chernobyl. The Autobots travel to the moon to find out what’s going on and find the tribe’s former leader Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimony, and even looks like Nimoy) in a virtual coma. Only a few of the Pillars, his invention which would create a kind of space bridge, remain onboard. Optimus uses his own powers to give energy back to Sentinel Prime.

Meanwhile, Sam is jealous of his girlfriend Carly Spencer’s boss Dylan Gould. Bigger things come into the picture when Sam’s new colleague Jerry Wang (great performance by Ken Jeong of The Hangover, etc) is murdered. Seems a lot of deaths are happening to people with any connection to moon missions. With Seymore Simmons (Turturro), Sam sees that Sentinel Prime and the leftover Pillars were actually a trap, a kind of conspiracy by the Decepticons to take over Earth and revive their own planet.

While there are some inconsistencies and cul de sacs within the story itself, the supporting players couldn’t be better. Frances McDormand, wife of Joel Coen, is brilliant as the hard-assed Charlotte Mearing, the U.S. National Intelligence Director who is not impressed with snot-nosed Witwicky’s claim to fame (he knows robot-aliens, okay?). John Turturro returns in his role as Seymour “Reggie” Simmons, this time with sidekick Alan Tudyk (as Dutch), and these two steal very nearly steal the show with their double act of mayhem, craziness and contained violence (see the Russian bar scene). For heavens’ sake, there’s even Buzz Aldrin – BUZZ ALDRIN, not Buzz Lightyear, dammit – who steps in and shows us what a real hero looks like. I’m not even mentioning the stellar comedy routines that John Malkovich squeezes into every scene that has him. It’s such an overstuffed roster of stars, it’ll make you giddy.

Of late, Bay is accused of using old footage of a car stunt in this new movie, adding to accusations that he is a formulaic rather than creative filmmaker. Bay does one thing well: he makes films that are brash, focused and exciting to the reptile brain.

But the real hero of the Transformers 3 – the one who’s taking most of the heat – is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. She doesn’t have to put in an Oscar winning performance here, but she does pretty well considering the role vacated by Megan Fox is a poisoned chalice. Of course, it is said that Steven Spielberg insisted that Fox be removed from the picture because she used the term ‘Hitler’ when she referred to Bay. (Maybe not the best thing to do with the executive producer is the man who made Schindler’s List?); LaBeouf, who claimed to have had an affair with Fox, said to GQ that she had to go. “Criticism is one thing. Then there’s public name-calling, which turns into high school bashing. Which you can’t do. She started sh-t talking our captain.”

So, there’s no way Rosie could win here, even if she turned out to be the next Katharine Hepburn.

Rosie, ignore the haters. They’re just jealous. Bay could have chosen anyone. He chose you. Nobody eats up the Red Epic camera looking like a sex-shaped mutant the way you do. Anyone who doesn’t notice how terrific you really are is already dead.

If you’re an over-sexed 12-year-old male, buy a carnet of tickets to see Transformers 3. That way you won’t have to clean the cache of your browser before your mom gets there.

If you’re not 12 years old, should you see it? If you liked any of the Transformers films before, then yes. If you found them too noisy, too hard to watch, too hard to follow and sort of dumb, then don’t.

Then again, if you aren’t compelled to see Transformers by the mere mention of its existence, this film doesn’t want you in the audience. It knows who its friends are. Transformers 3 knows what you want… (…wouldn’t it be cool if they were real?)

The best tweet ever about Transformers 3: @jpalmiotti (@jpalmiotti)
29/06/2011 13:44
“If you can’t get to Transformers 3D today, have a friend throw a handful of Lego at your face & push you down the stairs at the same time.”