Transformers 3: Mooning the Audience

Transformers Dark of the Moon.

This. Movie. Was. Bad.

Oh, my God. Yes, I know it looks like I'm jumping on the failure bandwagon, but it really is that awful.

Why does this film fail on almost every level? I'm glad you (Yes, you!) asked!

1. The Characters

A lot of the problems with the characters are more of the same from the previous films. Yes, Sam is still insufferable. Yes, his parents are still the worst characters in the film, and no, we're still not made to care about any of them one iota. But we also have a mess of new characters to add nothing but pain to this film!

First, we have Sam's new love interest, Carli, played by some British chick who I don't care enough about to look up. Yes, we all know Megan Fox compared Michael Bay to Hitler, but if you're wondering what happened to Sam's one true love from the previous film, Mikaela, you're not going to get any sort of real answer. They broke up. That's it. After much of the excessively long second film was devoted to "SAM! LET MY LOVE BRING YOU BACK FROM ROBOT HEAVEN!", she's unceremoniously dispatched between films. 

"I'd like to trade up for a quieter model, please!"

And while the new character (and actress) is a slight improvement over the vapid Megan Fox, the romance plot adds nothing to the movie about GIANT ROBOTS.

The next unwelcome addition is random government uptight witch played by Frances McDormand. Her character repeatedly mouths off to the aforementioned GIANT ROBOTS and *Spoiler alert* does NOT get squashed by the end of the movie. She's the stern, no nonsense government bureaucrat and every time she starts talking down to the Autobots, you hope and pray that one of them will end her miserable life, but none of them grant the audience that sweet relief.

 "F*ck you, giant robot!" ~ Summary of all her dialogue.

John Malkovich plays Sam's obnoxious, and incredibly irrelevant, boss. Its not even worth mentioning what a waste of talent this guy was.

 Yes, this guy could have done better than this movie.

Patrick Dempsey. What the hell? So, Dr. McDreamy comes into this movie as the successful yin to Sam's failure yang. He's Sam's girlfriend's attractive and rich boss, and your first thought is "Oh ho ho! Romantic tension!" But then halfway through the film, for NO REASON at all, its revealed that he's working for the Decepticons. What?! Its so clumsily written. This out of nowhere big reveal essentially comes off as "Oh Sam, by the way my father had ties to NASA and somehow fell into league with the bad robots. Now to have my tentacle rape car attack your girlfriend!" And his character JUST. WON'T. DIE. Ok, you want a human bad guy in this film? Alright. But after being attacked by a spacecraft piloted by Bumblebee, and somehow escaping an entire city under siege, he just keeps popping up. He essentially claims that he'd rather be at the devil's right hand, than in his path. Which is fine, until he becomes an antagonist. Not just a BAD GUY, but an opposing force, PREVENTING Sam from saving the planet. Hey, Patrick, how about you just pretend you don't see Sam, and then hide until this all blows over? The Decepticons clearly don't give a rat's ass what you do at this point. No, you're going to assault the main character and have a wimpy fight scene. Oh, ok. That's totally in your best interests-- oops, you're dead now.

 "No, I'm not a mustache-twirling supervillain. I just play one in really shitty movies."

Leonard Nimoy. Oh Leonard Nimoy. Why?! This movie. This terrible terrible movie had the gall to shoehorn in FOUR friggin Star Trek references that I could count. All because they cast Leonard Nimoy as the voice of Sentinel Prime. Yes, movie, we know you have Spock in your film. First, the annoying little Autobots are watching classic Star Trek where Spock goes nuts and smashes stuff (OMG FORESHADOWING, MICHAEL BAY, YOU GENIUS YOU!), Sam comments that Patrick Dempsey's office looks like the Enterprise, Bumblebee's "voice" uses a clip of Spock's death speech from Wrath of Khan, and.. Ugh... apropos of nothing, Sentinel Prime says to no one in particular that "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". The 6 billion humans are the few? What? And if this was a GOOD movie, this would be a lovely fan letter. But its not. Its Michael Bay trying to appeal to nerds/nostalgia junkies with his schlocky robot movie.

Nimoy was once interviewed by a puppet of pig scientist. This movie is less dignified.

As far as the returning characters go, John Turturro is back. His character is still the goofy comic relief former special agent, but after his introductory scene, he's downplayed, which is good. He even has an out of character "moment of wisdom" with Sam when the Autobots are being deported into space. A minor new character is Alan Tudyk (of Firefly/Serenity fame) as Turturro's right hand man. Unfortunately, he plays this character as an over the top gay foreign stereotype and his one moment of badassness is ruined when he reverts to character.

"Zoe, did I ever tell you about my ancestor, the Double Stereotype?"

Shia LaBeouf's Sam is still a whiny jerk. We all wish we had your problems. "Wah, my life is so hard with my robot pals and my second supermodel girlfriend! I'm having trouble job hunting after the government paid my way through an Ivy League school!" This time around he has an obnoxious sense of entitlement because of what little he did in the previous two films, and by the third time you hear "I got a medal from Obama", you want Bumblebee to forget he's in the driver's seat when he transforms.

Saving the best for last, Sam's parents. Holy crap, were they annoying and pointless. They did not need to be in this film at all. Arguably, none of the humans do, but even if you care about the human side of things, they served no purpose. They were just failed comic relief who show up at the beginning of the film and right before the third act. The second scene they're in is such a jarring tonal shift that I almost torched the theater. Dramatic stuff is happening with the robots, there's a betrayal, the master plan is revealed, hope looks bleak, and OH HO! HERE COME SOME NUTTY ANTICS FROM MOM AND DAD! HAHA SHE'S TALKING ABOUT HER SON'S WIENER! HILARIOUS! Not only does Michael Bay not understand story structure, but he doesn't understand comedy. At all.

Here's a fun question: Would you rather see more of these two, or the two humping dogs?

2. The Story

Its the same story from the last two films. There's an ancient Transformer and an ancient MacGuffin of power that everyone wants to get their hands on. This would be fine for a movie about giant robots, but no. We have to put up with many agonizing scenes of Sam trying to find a job, complaining about his life, and somehow not screwing up his relationship with yet another chick who is out of his league.

Eventually, a big government coverup about Transformers landing on the moon is discovered, and the Autobots go to the moon, rescue then resuscitate Sentinel Prime, and start trying to discover what the Decepticons master plan is, in regards to the big moon weapon. Then, in a move that should surprise no one, Sentinel Prime is revealed to working with the Decepticons, and they then tell the people of Earth to deport the Autobots into space, so that the Decepticons can use some natural resources, then leave peacefully.

With a face like that, how can you NOT trust him?

Because every human being in this fictional world is made of stupid, they go along with this. *Clears throught* THEY'RE CALLED THE DECEPTICONS!! WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN WHEN YOU SEND AWAY THE ONLY POWERS ON EARTH THAT CAN STOP THEM?! This must be the same group of people that allied with Dr. Doom in the second Fantastic Four movie. Oh well, maybe they can call that nice Sinestro fellow from the Green Lantern Corps to help. He seems trustworthy. Did they not want to seem prejudiced by not trusting the giant frightening killing machine? So, SURPRISE! The Decepticons blow up the shuttle the Autobots are totally in for realz and proceed to destroy Chicago in the first stage of their world-enslaving plan.

Every human in the Transformers universe.

Here's what makes no sense though: their plan IS to enslave the human race, Dempsey's character establishes this. However, we're shown the Decepticons HUNTING DOWN AND SLAUGHTERING THE PEOPLE OF CHICAGO. How does that make sense? Now, taking down the military I get. And collateral damage, in the middle of an epic battle makes sense too. But no, they chase down people fleeing the city and vaporize them. Wouldn't you want, y'know, MORE slaves? They were knocking jets out of the sky, its not like they needed to exert their power for fear's sake.

Then, after Chicago is a smoldering husk of destruction, Optimus Prime and the other Autobots come in to save the day, explaining that they were never on the shuttle, and they basically needed the world to see that they were needed. I'm sure that's a real comfort to the widows and orphans whose loved ones died while you made a point, you sanctimonious ass-bot!

3. Effects

So, right at the beginning of the film, we're treated to some altered history involving the original moon landing. During these scenes, they use what appears to be real footage of JFK and Richard Nixon, but its spliced in with actors who in no way resemble either president, as well as a very poorly done CGI Kennedy face. I don't know if either of these instances were some kind of effects or cinematography that just didn't pan out the way they'd hoped, but its a bad way to start things off. The same thing happens later when we flashback to Sam getting his medal from Obama. First, we see a photo that looks like Obama's head was literally cut and pasted onto it (I hope this was intentional, and I missed the "joke"), and then another actor who doesn't resemble the President at all. If you can't commit to an effective way to pull off this effect, then don't do it.

Next, there's this weird effect throughout the film where it looks like the camera is blinking. For example, a Decepticon is infiltrating a family's house. The mother walks in on it sitting near her daughter. The robot lunges at the mother. Cut to black for 1 second. Cuts back to robot attacking mother. Cut to black for 1 second. Cuts to robot about to attack father. Cut to black. It was a unique approach, but ultimately very distracting. (As was the Inception -like soundtrack, but that's nitpicking.)

Above: An image from Transformers 3

4. Positive aspects?

Were there some good effects? Absolutely. The hour long fight scene that comprises the 3rd act of the film is pretty good eye candy. Robots blowing crap up, and executing each other. It was decent action. The same complaints from the previous movie are still there, however. Its hard to tell any of the Decepticons apart aside from Megatron (who has a cape this time), Starscream (who has a whiny voice) and Shockwave (who is a cyclops). The rest are all grey, faceless bad guys.

Optimus Prime kicked a lot of ass. After Sentinel Prime betrays them, Optimus turns pretty hardcore. He slaughters the Decepticons like the well-oiled killing machine he is, decapitates Megatron (after probably the best exchange in the movie), and straight up executes Sentinel as he begs for mercy. It was pretty brutal, maybe a little out of character, but still the most entertaining part of the movie.

"Where's Frances McDormand? My bloodlust cannot be quenched!"

Oh! Also, his trailer was actually useful! In the old cartoon, it'd just disappear whenever he transformed. In this film, however, its his portable armory. All his bad-ass weapons are stored in it. I don't know if this was referenced in the other films or other media like the later cartoons or comics, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

As I write this blog, its been announced that this film was the most lucrative film of the year so far, with a record breaking opening weekend. That's right. This film has done better than Thor, X-Men: First Class, Super 8, or any of the much better films of this summer, let alone this year. Hell, the sub-par fourth Pirates of the Caribbean film and Hangover Part II were way better than this. I really hope the final Harry Potter movie at least comes close.

I went to see this film out of morbid curiosity. The second one was the worst film I've ever seen, and I had to know if they could do worse. Luckily, this one is slightly better. But was that everyone else's excuse? To measure this one to the previous entry? What other reason could you have for making this movie a box office success?

"I just really like movie theater popcorn. Topped with extra tears of shame."