TRANSFORMERS: Dark Of The Moon 3D Movie Review
As a film student alumnus, it’s not easy for me to like Michael Bay. He’s the example every directing, editing and writing professor used for what not to do when you make a movie. His usual when in doubt, blow something up has become a trademark of his style. I’m both surprised and disappointed to say that’s not what the new Transformers film lives up to. And to any viewer’s detriment, it’s a hell of a long ride if you’re expecting a quota of two or three explosions per thirty seconds. Hold onto your hats, kids! The Lord of the Rings of robots is funny AND explosion-y!
This final installment in the Hasbro adapted films takes us back into the world of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBoeuf). He’s now out of college and looking for work in the real world, with a new girlfriend to boot. After a string of mysterious murders, Sam is faced by the elusive Decepticons yet again, and the Autobots come to the rescue. They discover that there is a crashed “Ark” on the dark side of the moon that the government knew about but didn’t inform the Autobots of. They rocket to the moon and retrieve Sentinal Prime – the mentor of Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. Once returned, Optimus revives Sentinal, the engineer of a master weapon of destruction, only to find out the Decepticons hold it in their possession, which they fight to destroy before it destroys the Earth as we know it.
I have to say, out of all the Transformers movies, this one was definitely the best. And don’t get me wrong, my inner nerd was jumping up and down and clapping at the awesomeness of slow motion Autobots kicking ass. And this time around, Michael Bay (for some unwitting reason) decided to make an attempt at giving all the characters depth and development – even the Transformers. The story had a few twists and turns that were both unexpected and intriguing to the storyline. I found myself far more immersed in the characters than I’ve ever felt previously in the series, and it was far more satisfying to see the Autobots win this time around, because they faced really challenging trials in this one. It’s also the funniest of all of them. Now all that being said, it was LONG. And it wasn’t necessarily longer than the other films, it just felt longer. I kept checking my watch and not believing only five minutes had passed. I can essentially stack that up to poor pacing and sporadic, unprompted action scenes. There were far too many scenes that felt like the climax of the film, and when it did actually end, it was so sudden and unexpected that I actually threw my hands up in frustration. The denouement (the wind down) was maybe a minute or two, if that. It was like Bay tried to cram everything he could in and realized he’d already reached three hours and pulled the plug. After all, who cares about the ending right.....right? I also felt robbed since this is the last one, and we don’t really get a climactic end to some of the main characters (don’t worry, no spoilers here), they just sort of teeter off at the last moment. I say this is definitely a film to see in 3D in theaters, but make sure not to buy the extra large soda. Get ready for your bum to fall asleep.
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