Transformers 3: The Dark of the Moon

I really disliked Michael Bay’s first Transformers film, enough to avoid the second. The only positive was Peter Cullen returning as Optimus Prime. The rest, from human characters to design choices, I couldn’t stand.

And I went to this film with low expectations. I’d read reviews calling it bloated, vastly overlong, plotless and little more than a way for Bay to imply he was an underappreciated genius who would show the world how amazing he was. That and how certain shots were recycled from Bay’s previous films. Coming out of it, the main thing that stays with you is how horribly long the film was, two and a half hours that felt like over three. What’s most frustrating is that everything up to Sentinel Prime’s motive being revealed was more or less completely extraneous and could have been compacted into a very short sequence without much impact on the very thin characters, and yet the final confrontations were laughably short. Great long setpieces have very little connection to plot – for example, perhaps the most bravura sequence is hooked on the idea the soldiers want to go up a building already falling in two in order to get a good position, and abort as soon as trouble occurs.

I still don’t like the techno-organic look of the Transformers. More elegant simplicity would have worked. The second film seems to have introduced lots of comic relief Autobots, who are annoying – although at least their scenes aren’t as horribly jarring as the pseudo-satirical ones featuring poor John Malkovich…trying to pretend changes of styles mirror robots in disguise ain’t gonna cut it here. Surprisingly, I didn’t find LeBoeuf or Fox-replacement Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley annoying – they were cardboard characters in a Hollywood blockbuster, which is just fine. The Sam character’s job hunt and quest for self-worth not only took far too long but ended with the message that to be special and stand out, you have to be part of some crazy world-changing events, and should all have been truncated as it brought no depth.

It was a little odd hearing Leonard Nimoy, voice acting exactly as he did in Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, as Sentinel Prime, as his distinctive voice is still associated in my mind (Spock notwithstanding) with Galvatron. But I suppose most of the audience, even though who watched the animated film as children, will not make the connection or find it odd.

The film had amazing visuals and the 3D was some of the best I’ve seen on the big screen. Bay certainly knows how to film things blowing up, as is his reputation. But a great story and interesting characters would have elevated this immeasurably.