CG Robots Fight Other CG Robots. Splosions'!

Rating: 2/10 (7 July 2011)

Transformers 3-D Review
Here's a fun little fact, the day I saw "Transformers 3-D" I was also working my first day in construction. The guys pulled off a carpet, had me get down on my knees, and scrape all the green glue beads off. THE ENTIRE 1ST FLOOR. As my dad put it, "Its hard, you're gonna be tired, and you're gonna sweat like hell." Comforting. Although I think watching this movie was the more exhausting experience.
Transformers 3-D (or "Transformers 3: The Dark of the Moon" if you want to use it's full obnoxious title) is a special effects reel. There is a plot, a plot that started with promise, the space race of the 70's was to investigate an alien spacecraft? Sure. It could be a pretty good time. But, what lead me to believe that I was in for a movie with an intriguing plot, I do not know. It is an excuse for us to see robots beat the crap out of other robots.
I'm having a hard time figuring a standard to hold this to. Is it a sci-fi? A war movie? Or just an eye melting sequence of special effects? I don't know because the tone waves around so much it's hard to tell. The movie has dramatic elements too. Moments where sad music plays, and people look sad, mainly Shia Labdwqiufcgydil, who looks like he's trying to have a good time while acting in this heap, and the audience is supposed to feel sad, but in reality, I just felt awkward.
Megan fox is gone, because... I couldn't even tell you why. Some people say she quit because Shia Labouiyfouysdfgbliu claims he "shagged" her. Some say she got fired because she made some statement about Hitler (?????????????) But I think her terrible acting is enough to justify it. She has been replaced with a Victoria's Secret model who's never acted before. Because that is so much better. But to be fair, she was far better than Megan. But the new girl added nothing to the movie except something pretty to look at.
The effects are nice. But the main problem is the length. This is a 160 minute movie. 2 HOURS AND 40 MINUTES LONG. That is quite absurd for a movie about giant robots beating the crap out of each other. The first half was kind of cool, but self indulgent, and you could cut most of it out. I could understand 2 hours. Maybe 2 hours and 10 minutes. But stretching it out for this long in such a show-offish, over-the-top manner is too unnecessary.
The final act of the movie would be great if they had given me a little time to breathe between action scenes and catch up with the characters, similar to the way Die Hard let me breath between explosions. Die hard worked because it was suspenseful. Because you cared about John Mclain, and wanted to see him succeed. I don't care about any of the nameless autobots, or whether they succeed (although comparing Transformers 3 to die hard isn't fair, I'll admit that) . The physics are off too. If you crash through 10 sheets of glass, you die. At the very least, you get cut a lot. And if an explosion is detonated 5 feet away from you, you die. You don't just stand there like it didn't happen. In the words of Will Ferrel: "How do you walk away from an explosion without flinching like that? There's no way! The movie system is completely irresponsible for the way they portray explosions!"
The humor is better here. It doesn't make me ROFLMFAO (I hate it when people use that expression), but I confess I chucked a few times. When it comes to comedy, Michael Bay is no Ivan Reitman, he is more Tyler Perry. The racial stereotypes are downplayed, but still there. There is more emphasis based on comedic dialogue, which he also doesn't know how to write. The worst part was the mom giving her son a self help book about woman and like, breaks the flow. I was supposed to laugh, but I was saying to myself: NOT THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The story has tremendous holes in it's plot. THE DECEPTICONS ARE JETS! WHY DO THEY NEED A STARGATE TO TRANSPORT THEMSELVES TO EARTH! JUST FLY THERE! And why did the Autobots lead the Decepticons to Chicago to fight them? And why did the U.S. wait so long to tell the Autobots about the ship on the moon? Why not just tell them immediately? And the Decepticons' war is with the Autobots, why are they attacking humans?(this hole was brought up, but not answered.) And the guy in sector seven new about this. I think this ship on the moon would have trumped the whole "probe on mars" story. But I don't know if they even gave answers to this stuff because the plot was so uninteresting it lost me a lot.
Complaining about plot holes in transformers is pointless. This is about effects. Not more. The problem is, I grew out of effects. The first time I saw transformers when I was like 9, I could look over the story and characters because of how great and unique the effects were, but I see this kind of thing every summer. There is nothing unique, special, or memorable about this. I just felt like it wasted my time, like I payed $11 to stare at a wall. What I would like to see, is that battle of Cybertron that we hear about in every opening monologue, make that into a movie. But as for now, this is just another routine, boring popcorn movie. This is one of the hardest movies I have had to sit through, and that is that.