Where will the explosions stop?

Rating: 2/10 (28 June 2011)

Around a half hour into watching the third installment in the Michael Bay driven Transformers franchise, a very serious thought entered my head.
"What the f*** is this movie?"
I really am not sure where to begin when discussing such a chaotic mess that seemed like a 6 hour movie stuffed into a two and a half hour potato sack and beaten repeatedly with a pillow case filled with bars of soap.
I guess we can start with the goals that seemed to be laid out in making this third film.
First off, action and CGI were, without a doubt, the number one priority in this film. This makes complete sense. The action and CGI is really exciting to look at and a getaway for some viewers when they see a film; robots transforming from cars, buildings collapsing from the sky, soldiers flying into battle in wing suits, and what must have been thousands of explosions all in 3D.
The next objective had to be comic relief. If you are a minor character, you will say something funny. If you are a small transforming robot, you will definitely say something funny. Don't forget to make the jokes a little more vulgar than the first two films and even a little cheesier. Cheese sells.
The last major objective had to be how much sex appeal can we put in this movie. I suppose when you cast the likes of a Victoria Secret model in her first role in a film (see my previous article about Ms. Huntington-Whiteley from yesterday) and the hunky doctor from Grey's Anatomy your film is set to draw boys and girls alike.
The film accomplishes all of these goals, but at what cost (now it's as if I'm talking in an Optimus Prime voice). What about story? Coherence? Character development? Audience to character relationship?
It seems like I am just beating a dead horse over and over again (or a horse that surely does more coke than Tony Montana when directing his films), but I am more and more offended each time I see a Michael Bay film. Even more so, I am offended every time some moron in the theater tonight started clapping when Bumble Bee had a stellar looking upper cut kill or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley stood slow-mo with explosions blasting all around her (not joking, they clapped).
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a bumbling mess of fire and loud noises and is just another film for Michael Bay to add to the references on his resume for most ridiculous director of all time.
Even worse is the flow and logic of Dark of the Moon. I have seen plenty of films to accept that not understanding what is going on doesn't really matter, but it is different with a mainstream blockbuster. When watching a David Lynch film, you can expect something like this. When watching a film about transforming robots, coherence should be somewhat standard.
For the first hour and a half of the film I had no idea what city the film was in. I heard Sam (Shia LaBeouf) say "DC" early on, so I assumed that was where we were. But then his girlfriend Carly (Huntington- Whiteley) worked at the Milwaukee Art Museum (it took a while to realize that the museum was now fictionally home to her boss) and a fight takes place on a highway listing signs to "Aurora" and "Rt. 20" (names that any Chicago kid would recognize). Hell, the headquarters of NEST is clearly the downtown loop area.
So after a certain transformer leaves the NEST headquarters and is next to the reflecting pool in DC moments later, I thought "either Bay has decided his audience will have no idea what length of time passes from cut to cut or Milwaukee and Chicago are now Washington DC." I think the answer is the latter, but I am still not sure.
This is just one example of the incoherence that can be found in this film (like how Bumble Bee saves Sam in the middle of the battle and moments later is on his knees for execution by the hands of the decepticons). It is bewildering how unorganized this film is.
Maybe the final goal of Michael Bay in this film was to bring back memories of some of the most significant events in the United States since the 1960s. The film includes the Apollo 11 story, a rocket ship blowing up after take off that is extremely familiar to the Challenger explosion in 1986, and, as if the event being referenced wasn't fresh in many minds, sky scrapers tumbling to the ground and characters falling out of windows to their death.
There seemed to be no goal to the film other than mind fluff; expensive, loud, and annoyingly repetitive mind fluff. As a major credit to the special effects and CGI team, the film's action is a tremendous accomplishment. The problem is the success is contained in a film that has absolutely no other redeeming qualities.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is almost too bad to describe. I would like to say it contains the worst story and flow in any movie I have ever seen, but that would just seem overly dramatic.
I will say this, there were much better ways I could have spent my $15.50 and two and a half hours of my life than seeing this film. There have been enough films with explosions in the last five years to not have one for another 50.