Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Rating: 4/10 (13 December 2011)

Michael Bay is the abusive husband of the cinematic world. He promised us he had learned from his mistakes, he swore that it was the writer's strike that had a negative effect on the second film. And yet here he is, stumbling around like a drunk and going back on his promises. The film sits somewhere between the first two movies in terms of quality. But I may hate it even more than the second film. It's pretty terrible, but it also flirts with some nice ideas that it never explores.
There is less moronic comedy, but one has to ask if there was need for any. It's so childish, and yet we have almost every swear word and put down I can think of. Kids must just love hearing the words d***head, w**ker etc. They've added a completely unnecessary mini-autobot to join the annoying one from the last film. Why? He is always with the other character, and does stuff he could have done alone. It's a waste of screen time and special effects. After Bay was criticised for the racist twins of the last film he searched long and hard for a group it was socially acceptable to ridicule. Thank God for the gays. There are so many jokes about possible gay characters that it gets boring fast. Bay doesn't hide his republican ideals, but shouldn't he be trying to entertain us in more creative ways?
LaBeouf does fairly well here. I enjoyed his take on a wussy hero. It was great to see a young man screaming like a little girl. Leave the heroics up to the autobots. I was also impressed by his frustration. We have someone that has no recognition for his achievements. The pain when he is interviewed for a mailroom job, but declares he has saved the world twice, is a genuine moment of humanity. Yet, because it's Bay, this is soon undermined by a comical Asian character and another gay joke. I was also disturbed by Optimus Prime's killer nature. I was always under the impression that he was a leader and had compassion and morals. Here he declares "Kill them all" and stabs people in the back and tears off their faces. He's a bloodthirsty thing and scarier than the Decepticons.
Like I said, the film has some nice ideas. I liked having Megatron as a beaten and disgraced leader. Unfortunately, this avenue is never explored. He's just a hobo, until the scriptwriters managed to fit him in. It could have been a bit of a tragic fall, like Hitler in Downfall. The relationship between him and Starscream could have been very moving, as he would be loyal no matter how powerful Megatron was. Dempsey plays a particularly slimy villain, and it was interesting to see a human threat paired with the Decepticons. The script once again chickened out by having a new love interest. I understand Fox was gone, but Bay's handling of it was so childish. She just up and left did she? Bay seems to have forgotten that her character was separate from Fox herself. She helped save the world twice, and was supposedly the love of LaBeouf's life. Why not take a dramatic angle of an under appreciated hero, just ditched by his partner. Instead she's been replaced ever so quickly by some talentless, dull as dishwater, eye candy that isn't even that attractive.
The effects are incredible. They are seamless, but all this movie proves is that bad effects don't harm a good film and good effects don't make a bad film any better. The action scenes were very well constructed, and I could tell all the robots apart this time. Also, I never fell asleep like with the second movie. Had the fat been trimmed and the extremes of goody comedy and then humans disintegrated been better balanced, we may have had a very enjoyable movie on our hands. Had more attention been paid to the drama, it could have even been great.