'You may lose you faith in us'

Rating: 5/10 (9 July 2011)

No Optimus, I don't have a problem with you, it is the way Michael Bay directs the films you are in I have lost faith in. After the mess that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, many people involved, including Bay and Shia LaBeouf admitting it was bad and wanted to make amends. Dark of the Moon is an obvious improvement on Revenge of the Fallen, but lacks the claim of the first film.
Starting with a montage of how the Space Race to the Moon between America and the Soviet Union was to get an alien spacecraft that crashed on the dark side of the Moon. Soon we discover that the Soviet tried to use Cyberonian technology that resulted into the Chernobyl meltdown. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and the Autobots bring back Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) and revive him. But more important Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) has a new British girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitely) and is looking for a job, which he gets with a aerospace company lead by John Malkovich. On the Deceptions front they are killing humans that worked for them and trying to revive all of the Autobots Pillars to make a sky bridge and turn Earth into a new Cybertron: sounding very much like a plot from a two part episode of Doctor Who.
One of the first big improvements is the removable of the Twins, the two annoying, racial stereotypes who should have been given a unpleasant death. During Revenge of the Fallen I was pretty much cheering for the Deceptions to win, showing how much Bay failed with this 'lovely comic relief' characters! Megan Fox is also gone because we all know of the aftermath of calling Bay, Hitler. Huntington-Whitely replaces her and Bay showing that Transformers does not need actors. Huntington-Whitely's performance has been criticised but I personally thought she was passable. She is better then Fox who is a really bad actress and her character is more charming and likable, but at the same time not going to win over feminists because Bay leers over Huntington-Whitely's body and she is just a damsel in distress. The comedy is toned down and the plot is a little more focused. The other new feature is 3D, Bay being won over to shoot the film with the technology. It has been called the best 3D since Avatar, Avatar still has the best 3D in a film so far. There were times in the film when it was not in 3D and the affect was pointless: it only really worked during the slow-mo scenes.
The action is really strong, shaky cam is not used as much and there are excellent set pieces, particularly with Optimus Prime using a sword and an axe. We do get robot on robot action and Bay's love for military porn. But like the previous films Bay focuses on the humans, the characters people do not care about. Optimus gets more screen time and you got to love it when he kicks butt. But the film suffers when he is not around and like during the Battle of Chicago he does not have that big a role and Bay focuses on the soldiers and even when Optimus is in the middle of a big fight Bay makes as watch LaBeouf in a fist fight. Like the previous two films the special effects are excellent and Steve Jablonsky does give a great score, obviously influenced by Inception.
Bay also still sees the need to have bad comedy, whether it is in the form of annoying and pointless characters like Wheelie and Brains, or Ken Jeung role as a guy who worked with the Deceptions and ends up being made out to be a strange weirdo, ending up with a gay joke, oh high class wit. I would have made Transformers to be a little more light-hearted and tongue in cheek, but still pretty serious, Spider-man and Iron Man would have been great models to follow. Dark of the Moon is too long and should have been a fun two hour film, it focuses on a human characters too much, including a boring and unfunny montage of Sam going to job interviews. Many scenes could have been cut out. I also have a problem with the swearing because a lot of families went to see it and the film did use strong language. Compare it to other PG-13/12A releases like the new Batmans, the X-Men series, the new Bonds, etc, swearing is toned down and kept to a minimum.
Frances McDormand was a fine addition as the Director of NEST and John Turturro is a lot less annoying as Agent Simmons, given a more serious role. But the role of Shockwave was marketed as if he was going to be the main bad guy, but Dark of the Moon suffers the 'Angel' like X-Men: the Last Stand did, making a character has a bigger role then they really did.
To me Dark of the Moon felt like a end of a trilogy and I would not be surprised if the series has a mini-reboot. If it does I hope the filmmakers make the Autobots the main characters and the humans as support, not the other way round. If Dark of the Moon was the sequel after the first film I properly be a lot more positive towards it. The action is fun, it is escapism, but there are too many problems.