Crap piled on crap, piled on crap, piled on crap

Rating: 2/10 (29 June 2011)

Somebody please institutionalize Michael Bay. The first Transformers was a weak action film with some redeeming qualities. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was a ridiculous and over the top mess and now we've arrived at Transformers: Dark of the Moon which at this point is just sad. This is a pathetic excuse for an action blockbuster that makes a mockery of everything action films stand for. In the latest bulbous growth to the series follows the Autobots when they find a Cybertronian spacecraft on the moon. The Autobots must save the world again as they keep the Decepticons from utilizing the spacecraft for a worldwide takeover.
There isn't really much more to say about the plot because it might as well be nonexistent. In its place we find the most convoluted action scenes full of a painful and redundant amount of explosions and robots throwing crap at each other. There is a scene here and there that I might be able to stomach calling a little cool or kinda neat, but this film mainly succeeds in convincing me that giant fighting robots can actually be really boring. I never thought I could muster up so much hate for so much action. But there is a certain point when all cinematic skill and finesse goes out the window and it is nothing more than an attempt to see how many explosions can be allowed in one two and a half hour film. There is no aesthetic quality to the action. It is as far from stylish or sophisticated as it can possibly be and is nothing more than an idiotic mess. I don't remember the last time I wanted a film to end as badly as I did during the last 45 minutes of endless stupidity that was the final battle of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
This film basically breaks down as follows. 60 percent action. 30 percent stupid jokes that do so incredibly little for the plot and aren't all that funny. 5 percent childish romance between the two obnoxious leads. And finally, 5 percent story. After Michael Bay snorts twelve lines of coke and crams his idiotic mess of a film full of as many explosions possible he says to himself, "Oh right! I have to put a story in here somewhere! Well I can't have it take up too much time so I'll have to just have the characters explain things as blatantly and flatly as possible so that I have more time to thrown in explosions and stupid jokes that don't really belong here, but who cares! I'm Michael Bay I can do whatever the hell I want! And that includes making my movie two and a half hours long!" And what a painful two and a half hours it was. If only Bay's heart had stopped after that whole spiel and I would be in a better place right now.
This film reminds me why the art of filmmaking is so under-appreciated. It is because some "filmmakers" manage to produce steaming piles of crap like this movie. Every moment of this film is a mess. I chuckled maybe once and never did I feel I was witnessing something intense, awesome, or even fun. I wanted this movie to end and when the credits finally began to role a huge wave of relief came over me. This film is exactly how not to make a film. It is boring, stupid, paced horribly, and just put together so horribly and so crudely. In all its glamour and grandiose special effects you would think the film would be more polished than this turd is, but it is just such a piece of garbage that feels like it was thrown together by someone who has never made a film in their life. It is dreadful on a whole new level. However, there is one thing going for this film. I'm going to go see a lot more films this year as we're only half way through. A lot of them will surely be crap but now, when I see a bad film I can at least find some optimism by telling myself, "At least it wasn't as bad as Transformers: Dark of the Moon."