Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon (12A)Director: Micheal Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Tyrese Gibson
Once in a while, a film comes along that is something quite special. Setting the standard higher than any that has gone before. Such a film has the ability to unite people in a common purpose, no matter what walk of life they come from, enabling young and old, rich and poor, to put aside personal differences and agree together on one a common opinion...disgust!
It's not that Transformers 3:Dark of the Moon is just bad - that, this trilogy will be long remembered for. Instead, Micheal Bay has upped the ante once more and has created a "film" that not only succeeds in being vapid, obnoxious and offensive, but downright boring. The plot that exists is a hotch-potch of half-ideas, beginning in the 1960s with the suggestion that the American space programme and moon landings (via some shocking intercutting of real footage) were an effort to reach a crashed Autobot vessel (they are the good robots - you can tell because they don't have evil red eyes). This ship carries 'pillars' which have the ability to open portals which allow teleportation. Cue the Decepticon's (red eyes) fiendish plan to bring their home planet of Cybertron to Earth, enslaving mankind in the process.
TF3 is a game of two halves.
For the first hour exactly nothing happens. Not only does nothing happen, but when it does happen, it is garbled and confusing, with big jumps in continuity and logic. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf - the human hero of the previous two outings) finds himself searching for work while also struggling to come to terms with the fact the Autobots no longer need him. Fortunately for Sam, he has a new girlfriend, possibly the least developed and most insincere relationship ever commited to celuloid, played by super-model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in inimitable Bay style, with minimal charisma and minimal clothing. In Bay's world men are either soldiers or gay, women are either supermodels or Mrs Trunchbull tyrants (with insinuations of lesbianism), and ethnicities serve only to be stereotyped (only black people say "wak"). All familiar territory for the Transformers world, but Bay truely outdoes himself with some horrendously thoughtless references to 9/11 and Chernobyl. Classy.
(NB. This is a 12A rating but due to sexual content, innuendo and swearing - not to mention the regular Hostel-style disembowling of robots - it should be avoided for younger audiences. .)
Played largely, and largely unsuccessfully, for goofy laughs, the first hour feels like a holding pen until the director can unleash his trademark Bayhem in the second half. Surely this will redeem the film, especially in the glory of 3D?!
Well, no actually.
Devoted to one long fight scene, this should be visceral, mind-blowing, red-hot action. Granted, the CG is effective, robots really do look like they are hitting each other, and a free fall set-piece is very well done. However, despite so much going on (explosions, mecha-crunching fist-fights, lots of running and shouting) there seems to be very little happening. Sure, there is lots of noise and stuff, but it's all so overblown that it's difficult to get a handle on anything, making what should be exciting, well, boring.
It appears that Bay does not have an original idea in his head. Decepticon spaceships and technological hardware are a 'who's who' of other alien incarnations. Humans are dispensed of in War of the Worlds dust-clouds, the motherships are Skyline carbon-copies, and the snake-like droids have been seen ad nauseum attacking The Matrix's Zion. (There is also a horrendous amount of copy-and-paste dialogue. Guess the films: "I'll never let you go", "There can only be one", "With great power..." yadda yadda yadda...). The random splicing of half-finished scenes, breathtakingly poor soundtrack choices, and rapid cuts is entirely disorientating, causing the viewer to slip into a kind of action-induced coma.
Having spent so much on CG effects, Bay clearly had no money left for insignificant details like script, story or acting direction. Forget the Blockbuster cliche "it's just a bit of fun" - it isn't. It is boring and senseless, leaves a bitter after-taste, and gives the best reason yet to close down Hollywood forever.
Rating: 1/5
