Load, aim, shoot, crash, boom, explosion, repeat

Rating: 2/10 (14 October 2011)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is loud, lucrative, cloying, and an ongoing headache of a film. Its structure consists of mindless action scenes with hundreds of explosions, stiff characters, and a neverending amount of screaming. It's easily one of the worst action films to come out of Hollywood in recent memory, and the worst Michael Bay film to come out in about a year.
The story is convoluted and just a mess. In simple terms - the Autobots and the Decepticons are at war again, and for some reason, they decide to fight on Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive in Chicago.
Shia LeBeouf is back playing Sam, who is still as idiotic and as loud as ever. Only this time, he has a new accomplice named Carly (Whiteley) who takes Megan Fox's place in the film. Together her and Sam face numerous explosions and somehow survive everyone of them. Because, you know, every girl sticks by some charming nerd who has a relationship with giant metal monstrosities. Not to mention remaining optimistic while they watch in awe as the robots turn Chicago into what appears to be the depths of hell.
When people say they love the Transformers films I can't help but laugh, then correct them. They don't love the film. They love the explosions, the special effects, and the constant, mind-numbing action on screen. If these action sequences were cut up and put on the internet in little spurts and dubbed something totally different it would be the web series every twelve year old would be talking about. So, before you say you love Transformers: Dark of the Moon, stop and think - do you like the film or the special effects within the film? I bring this up because while Transformers: Dark of the Moon lacks a lot of hefty material that is required to make a good film, it completely shows the carelessness and idiocy of making a modern day action piece. Look at any good action film - Death Race 2000, Dirty Harry, Easy Rider, The Rookie, Speed, etc. What makes them all good besides their iconic leads? Character development, dialog, and worthy special effects that make up well crafted action scenes. Transformers, and I'm saying this to represent the entire franchise, lacks all but one of the categories.
No matter how great the pyrotechnics, the explosions, or some of the scenes are, it gets incredibly aggravating to see pretty much the same thing for the course of two and a half hours. Not only is this just an incoherent mess, it's a mess that occupies so much more time than it needs to. It would be different if there was some narrative consistency rather than just explosion after explosion with a pounding, pretentious score playing at all times. If it followed a simple story, and worked from the ground up rather than settling for such a lazy style of film-making, the series might actually be more than just "dumb fun." One thing I could never wrap my brain around were the physics. I understand the whole genre is based off of someone's creative idea. In a cartoon, the idea of cars turning into a full-blown mechanical robot destroying everything in their paths is not only unique, but perfectly acceptable. For a cartoon of course. In a live action film, the idea is simply way too plausible to be accepted. The fun thing about cartoons is you know they could never happen. Having a live-action film made about the franchise, let alone three, just flat out ruins the point of Transformers overall - it could simply never happen.
Certain scenes baffle me. For one - how can a robot jump, climb, wrestle, destroy, and blow up the same building and not having it collapse? How can another robot run on the side of a building without going straight through it or making it tilt? Also - how can Sam attach a grappling hook to a robot's eye while proceeding to be flung around like a piece of meat, crashing into concrete garages and buildings? With one hand only. Questions like these don't really get any other answer aside from "just because." Director Michael Bay has spent most of his directing years to making and producing horrible remarks and lackluster franchise re-imaginings. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the poster child for why he shouldn't be in film, and why action films are quickly spiraling down to an all time low. The problem with Bay is he isn't creative or willing to pursue his own personal idea. The problem with this is the fact it suffers from no straight forward narrative, and relies on drawn out, cliché action scenes that, while well-crafted, go on for way too long of a time span.
The final battle in Chicago, literally, is over an hour long. And it ends in the same cliché one would expect. If the battle was an hour long, and we were provided with a twist or something new I could see the reason for making it a certain length. But when you make us walk a long road to get somewhere and we get something we've seen before it just makes the whole trip useless and contrived.
The moral of the story with Transformers: Dark of the Moon can be summed up, unlike the film itself, simply and effectively; quality over quantity.
Starring: Shia LeBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, and John Malkovich. Directed by: Michael Bay.