Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Movie Review

"Transformers: Dark of the Moon"/Dir. by Michael Bay/Paramount Pictures/Rated PG-13/157 min.

Michael Bay likes to blow stuff up real good. I know this is a bold statement about the man who directed "Bad Boys", "Armageddon" and the "Transformers" films, but I stand by it. He pays lip service to the idea of a "plot" and to "character", but really, they're nothing more than an explosive delivery system. In previous films, this sort of bothered me, especially in "Pearl Harbor", where he used one of the most tragic events in U.S. history as a means for his fetishistic love of all things destructive. One shouldn't be watching the attack on Hawaii and think "Wow, those explosions are cool!".

However, I thought the first "Transformers" movie was the perfect marriage of director and material. Go ahead Michael, make the giant alien robots blow stuff up. Fill the story to the brim with silly characters and silly plot contrivances because this is, after all, a movie based on a toy. (anytime you start a movie with the credit "in association with Hasbro productions", you know you're not looking at a future best picture candidate) Yes, "Transformers" was profoundly silly, but it was fun and gave the maestro of destruction a perfect canvas for his unique sensibilities.

Unfortunately, it also made him a fortune and gave him free reign to go crazy on the sequel, which amped up the action, but also amped up the "comedy" with wall to wall characterizations that made Jar-Jar Binks seems subtle and sophisticated by comparison.

So, the real question for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is this: Is it better than the last one? The answer, thankfully, is yes. The annoying characters are still annoying, but there's less of them. The "funny" parts are still, for the most part, met with silence and the "serious" parts met with laughter. It's still WAAAAYYY to long, with a final battle that lasts for over and hour. Seriously. Over an hour. However, it's more of the guilty pleasure that the first one was, instead of just the guilt (minus the pleasure) of the second one.

This time, our protagonist, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has graduated from an ivy league school, but is still having a hard time finding work. Fortunately, his new girlfriend (former Victoria Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) just got a great new job and is making enough for both of this. However, Sam feels that his past service to the country (you know, saving the world a couple of times) should have afforded him a better career path.

Meanwhile, bad things are happening in the world of robots in disguise. Several world events, including the original moon landing and the explosion at Chernobyl, are being revealed to be all Cybertron-y. It's up to all of the gang from the previous films to get together and figure it out before Earth becomes the blueprint for "The Matrix".

As I said, the plot is strictly incidental, although there are some nice twists as the true villains of the story are revealed. They're fairly obvious, but these twists show more cleverness than this series has heretofore shown as a standard. In the end, the central protagonist isn't Sam, or even Optimus Prime and his Autobot buddies. It's the mayhem.

I mentioned earlier that the final battle is over an hour long and while I believe it was a little bit of overkill, it's still a pretty stunning set of eye-candy. The previous films took a slightly more cartoonish approach to the ending set pieces, but this one has a bit of a "War of the Worlds" type vibe to it. The threat is surprisingly dark for this light an entertainment and it's doubly impressive in 3D. (word is that James Cameron himself gave Bay pointers on how to effectively use the format). Supposedly, this is the final film in a trilogy and I kind of hope it is because the sheer volume of havoc found in this battle would be unwise to try to top. As it is, I don't think I need to see a giant special-effects extravaganza for quite some time and for those of you who know my love for all things digital, you know that's saying something.

The bottom line is this. "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" is not a good film, but it is a great spectacle. It's less annoying that the 2nd film, although not quite as much fun as the 1st. However, if you liked either of those two, it's an easy recommendation.

Grade: B-