Michael Bay has stated in interviews that he wasn’t very happy
with Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen because it had a bad script. The second film, which was
rushed into production to avoid the then-imminent writers’ strike, was a pretty
sorry affair, with blatantly racist robot characters, along with some very
lengthy and boring exposition scenes that didn’t really serve anything. With
Dark Of The Moon, his third (and reportedly final) Transformers film, Bay at
least makes an effort to present a coherent story, and, as a result, the first
five minutes are downright thrilling.
Opening with an intriguing flashback sequence showing that the entire Apollo Moon program was nothing more than a race to get to the moon ahead of the Russians--not for prestige and bragging rights, but so the United States could get its hands on Transformer tech in a derelict ship that crash landed on the moon. The scenes with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin uncovering the spaceship--using a communications blackout with earth that was imposed by the American intelligence agencies--is both mind-boggling and extremely cool to watch. And this scene falsely led me to believe that maybe Bay has finally decided to make a popcorn flick with brains, for once.
And then we jump ahead to the present day, and are once again are reminded of
Bay’s shortcomings as a filmmaker, as Sam Witwicky is awakened by his gorgeous
new girlfriend--who’s scantily clad and whose curves are lovingly photographed
in the flashy voyeuristic style that Bay uses on all of his young female leads--and
the pacing immediately slows to a crawl, and whatever high end story concept that
was promised in the opening is squandered in favor of the usual dopey Transformer
sit-com mentality, as Sam tries to lead a normal life until the Transformers
predictably come after him.
But just when your expectations for the film are drastically lowered, Bay abruptly kick-starts the story about halfway through as an alien invasion movie. The evil Transformers have seized the city of Chicago in a mesmerizing sequence of apocalyptic proportions, wrecking buildings and slaughtering helpless humans in the streets. But Chicago winds up being only the staging area for a massive effort to bring the Transformers home world into our realm…or something like that. Who really cares? Seriously. After all, these latter scenes show Michael Bay at his best: blowing stuff up while showing a rip-roaring battle in the streets of Chicago that’s just as devastatingly convincing as it’s spectacular.
And while the real stars here are the big talking robots who make things go boom,
there are still some stand-outs in the cast. Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock
from the 1960s Star Trek, joins the voice cast as one of the Transformers (and
Bay pays homage to his presence by having some of the robots watch an episode of
classic Trek). Out of the cast, only Frances McDormand (Fargo, Beyond Rangoon)
really manages to rise above the material. While Dark Of The Moon may fall short
of the promise of its grand opening, it’s still a fun popcorn flick filled with
some amazing eye candy.
--SF
Main Review Page | Fantasy Reviews |Transformers: Dark of the Moon on DVD
