Transformers: Dark Side Of The Moon Review

For you TL:DR guys.

Oh god, where do I even begin. Today, along with the a few friends, I had the amazing opportunity to watch Transformers 3: Dark Side Of The Moon on launch, for free. I walked in with negative expectations, my brain fully turned off and a pair of 3D glasses, ready for a film that probably wouldn't be as bad at its predecessor.

But I was so, so wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Bay has topped himself, releasing a movie somehow even worse than the movies that came before it. So much f**cking worse, as a matter of fact, that the movie experience turned into a survival event for all of us due to the intense mental agony the movie bombarded us with, in waves.

I will present my observations about the movie point by point, after the break.



-The movie starts off strong, with a really well-done retro montage of a secret side mission that occurred during the Apollo 11 lunar landing, involving the crew having to explore the 'Ark..' aka the Autobot craft that carried the last of their race but crashed into the moon. But it quickly devolved into a series of useless subplots about Shia trying to find a job, Megatron hanging out in Africa, stupid love triangles between Shia and his girlfriend, Shia's parents coming into town (and never being heard of again), as well as other plot points that are touched upon and then completely abandoned. It felt like Michael Bay had just decided to keep one hour of footage that didn't quite work to artificially extend the length of the movie, while not progressing the plot in any way whatsoever.

Spoilers: This shot makes up about 45% of the movie.

-Megan Fox was Oscar worthy compared to who they replaced her with: Rosie Huntington Whitely, an English Victoria's secret model who was probably not cast for her acting skills. She spent the entire movie speaking in what sounded like a fake British accent (how'd that happen?), while robotically delivering lines. Every time she showed up, the movie stopped dead in its tracks. Also, Michael Bay's choice of shots were nothing short of absolutely pervy, focusing on low angle shots, upskirts and slow, creepy pans across Whitely's body for no apparent reasons. I guess that's what he assumed we wanted to see for forty minutes of the movie.

Shia La Beouf and bit character #245, who appears in one scene and disappears after a line of dialogue.

-The movie felt like a schizophrenic mishmash of genres and styles, incapable of deciding what the hell it wanted to be. The actors weren't directed in any consistent manner, resulting in way too wide a range of performances: From Ken Jeongs's (Mr. Chow from the Hangover) absolutely unfunny slapstick performance as a paranoid conspiracy agent to John Turturro's, again, completely phoned in, campy performance. None of the characters were developed enough for the audiences to even care. They were all caricatures that were only touched upon on the surface.

Who were these guys again?

-Action and reaction. Characters just did not act human in this movie, and the way that they reacted to events just kept pulling me out of the movie over and over again. I kept trying to place myself in their boots, and wonder what would cause them to give so little of a sh** about dramatic events that should have affected them profoundly. Key characters would die in this movie and characters would not even stop and vow revenge, grieve or lament the loss of said character. This happened multiple times.

Wait, WHAT?!?!

-Wheeljack. When this Transformer appeared on screen, we bursted out laughing. This Autobot had metal bifocals, a metal mustache and a cranium... And blue hair. Thats right, a giant Transformer with hair made out of fiber optic cables, modeled after Einstein with an accent that resembled Scrooge McDuck. REALLY NOW? There's a good reason why its near to impossible to find images of this Transformer.

Ferraribot had a rasta accent and 'cyber dreads,' by the way.

-Product placement. This movie just did not give a f*** in this regard, firing product placement after product placement in the most blatant manner possible. I lost count after the twentieth in your face shot of a watercooler of Arrowhead, Lenovo Monitors, GMC, Ferrari, Mercedes, Perrier, and a few dozen other products shamelessly tossed in to further take you out of the movie.

Brain function...diminished due to Bay exposure.

The movie was a bloated corpse of everything that is wrong with movies as of late. Style over substance, commercialization over delivering a good story. Everyone just walked out disgusted from the screening, and mentally exhausted over having to sit through nearly 3 hours of brainless fireworks, closeup shots of a hot girls face and a plot so convoluted it would make your head spin (Something about colliding Cybertron into earth). If you are considering watching this tomorrow, let me personally appeal to you guys: Just say NO. We took a bullet for you guys to bring you this review.

(UPDATED 7/2/11)