Transformers: Dark of the Moon [M]

The civil war between the Autobots and the Deceptecons has been dormant for a while: dormant enough to allow Sam to complete college, receive a medal from the President and win over a new hot girlfriend. But this proves to be just the calm before the storm, as mysterious truths about some of Earth’s most iconic and disastrous pasts events threaten the fate of the planet with the Deceptecons bringing the war right onto its doorstep. 

By the end of Revenge of the Fallen, the whole Transformers hysteria had subsided for me so I wasn’t in the slightest bit eager to go and see this movie when it first came out. I then wasn’t all that keen to rent it when it first came into work, and it’s been in our collection for quite a while now and yes it’s taken me this long to see it. And I don’t regret or feel embarrassed that it’s taken me this long to see it because at the end of two and a half hours I am really a bit peeved. Not peeved enough to say that this was two and a half hours of my life wasted, but peeved enough to say that I could have filled that time with something better. 

The civil war between the Autobots and the Deceptecons has been dormant for a while: dormant enough to allow Sam to complete college, receive a medal from the President and win over a new hot girlfriend. But this proves to be just the calm before the storm, as mysterious truths about some of Earth’s most iconic and disastrous pasts events threaten the fate of the planet with the Deceptecons bringing the war right onto its doorstep. 

What I saw all through this movie was battle, battle, destruction, explosion, destruction, smoke, smoke, smoke, fire, explosion, fight, fight, fight, violence, violence, violence, fight, fight, and destruction. What the fuck? Why are these movies continuing to be made when they’re fast turning into just a chance for Michael Bay to see how much action and violence he can cram into a specified running time?! And you know how they get away with the M rating? Because all the really horrible stuff happens to machines! Seriously, this movie is really violent: there are spines being literally wrenched from bodies through the cavities of the neck after the head has been shot off! There is blood and puss and juices everywhere and yet if this shit were happening to humans this movie would most likely be banned. 

Some spectre of a plotline does wisp in and out of focus throughout the movie and. in an attempt to celebrate history or turn this into more than a metal and blood filled action flick, snippets of footage from the 60s and 70s have been incorporated into the mix. This is all well and good, but there is this horrible lack in consistency as grainy vintage footage than suddenly changes to sleek modern day coverage depicting the same events. This movie is someone with Paintshop or Photoshop testing out what each button does and slapping it all together to call it a computer photo album. The editing is jagged and ridiculous with sudden cut to black being a popular favourite means of moving onto the next scene: yet another ocean of fire and rubble, a sea of destruction and devastation. After the Twin Towers and the Boston Bombings and all these other horrible events that have happened in America, how can American audiences still sit and watch these climactic battles reduce their cities to a sea of ash, rubble, fallen buildings and glass? 

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel. John Turtutto, Tyrese Gibson, Patrick Dempsey, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk, Ken Jeong, and John Malkovich, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a highly charged movie filled with action, destruction, violence, romance, and the tiniest attempt at comedy. This all sounds like I’m saying it’s a bad movie, but it isn’t. The special effects and the action sequences are all still quite mind blowing, but for me it has gotten to that point of “why, why are you making another one?”