Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

For those of you who are too young or those of you who have been living under a rock for the past 2 decades, Transformers are a franchise based on toys from the 198o's. The premise behind it is an alien race of super advanced robots that can change from one form to another to adapt to their environment.
Recently, there have been 3 live action movies released based on this franchise. Dark of the Moon is the 3rd and most recent installment. The version I saw was in 3D using custom 3D glasses I made by cutting out the lenses from those nerdy glasses they give you and clicking them inside the frames of my regular glasses behind the traditional lenses. This didn't really work all that well as the angles were off a little. I was getting a lot of double vision for a lot of the effects and onscreen text. I would suggest wearing the nerd glasses in front of your regular ones, or getting contact lenses.

In a word, Transformers 3 is Unbelievable. But I mean this in the bad way. There is not a single thing about this movie that was believable.
The main human character is an idiot. He has no job, yet he hooks up with supermodels. Not once, but twice. During the entire movie, said supermodel wears high heels. Even running, army-rolling, falling, sliding along the floor of a building that is about to fall over, getting shot at, jumping onto the hull of moving hover plane, all the time the high heels stay on.
Megatron is back. I can't remember if he came back at the end of the second movie, but the second movie was so shit-boring I must have dozed off. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't he die at the end of the first movie? I'm calling BS. Bull. Shit.
The CGI is well integrated into the live action throughout the movie, but there are times when you can actually tell you are looking at fake, to the point that it hurts your brain. Not the main action sequences. They are done perfectly. It's more the little things like when they zoom out and view Optimus in truck more from above, driving down the road. It just looked unpolished.
Also, apparently super advances robots that can travel across space and bend the laws of physics, cannot hit a moving human from about 10 meters away with the particle projectile beams built into their arms.
All robots speak with an American accent, regardless of where in the universe they came from.

Anyway, the storyline of this movie revolves around the initial moon landing and the supposed coverup of what actually happened. Apparently, the US knew about a crash landing of an alien craft on the dark side of the moon and went to investigate, and covered up the investigation by disguising it as man's first footsteps on the moon. Everything seems straightforward from here, but this is only a ruse to the real story that lies behind the coverup. In terms of plot, this movie would have to be the best of the three, with the first being very apt at introducing the series, and the second movie being completely crap.

The good:
- Leonard Nimoy. I'm pretty sure he's voicing some giant robot in there.

- Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime kicks ass. It great that they got the original voice actor to do him.

- Megatron. Megatron is an egomaniac. Finally we get to see this side of his personality in the full and the huge fault that comes with it.

- Action. There is a lot of action in this movie, and while the camera gets up close and personal with people's faces, it doesn't get too up close and personal with the characters. AKA, they don't use the camera as a story telling device. This is one thing that Michael Bay has done well here.

- The best extra in the world. I won't spoil it for hunters, but the worlds most famous extra is in this movie. He has appeared in countless other blockbusters and when I saw him, I totally pissed myself. Kudos to whoever cast him. WIN.

- Bumblebee's Shouryuken. In one of the slo-mo fight scenes, Bumblebee totally dragon uppercut's a deceptacon and blows off it's head with his blaster. Forward-down-eighth-circle-forward-heavy-punch FTW.

- Shockwave. Shockwave finally makes an appearance and he actually resembles Shockwave from the original G1 cartoon series. His weapon/pet is also kick ass (if a little bit too Dune sandwormish).

- Comedy. There are heaps of jokes in the movie, and some of them are harder to spot than others. Some are a bit too obvious like the Asian co-worker, but I liked when he made the boss flinch.

The Bad:
- Sound. It could have just been the cinema we were in, but I found it hard to hear what Shaia LeDouche was saying. Most of his lines are gibberish anyway, but at some points it was just painful. Also when the military guys are trying to talk over the sound effects, it's quite tiring.

- Female eye-candy. The main character's girlfriend is a Victoria's Secret model, and they have found every opportunity to squeeze in as much fan service as they can. At one point there is a slo-mo of her just standing there, while stuff blows up in the background. I wanted to shout out "Get the f#ck out of the way, I want to see the robots fighting you stupid bitch!"
That being said though, she was actually a great actress and probably gave the most realistic performance of the entire cast, along with the main human male antagonist, who also happens to be the character that arouses jealousy in the main male protagonist.

- Complex visuals. While it's nice to see a robot transforming, it's just too complex. There is no need for Optimus's legs to deform into millions of pieces only to reform back into a shape that was already present in the other form. This is the equivalent of a robot being a Broadway drag queen. Overly camp. I wished they stuck to simpler transformation such as with the old cartoon series.

- Heels. See heels section in above rant.

- Michael Bay. It say's "A Micheal Bay film in the credits. I would be surprised if any other name appeared there.

- Patriotism. American symbolism is strewn throughout this movie. It's very subtle, and most people won't even notice, but it still makes we want to evacuate my bowels violently.

- Deaths. Humans explode on screen and vaporize into nothing. This is cool. When a robot dies, it just crumbles into bits. This is lame. To quote the movie, "The bad guys always get the good stuff". This applies to deaths too.

- Music. The music in this tries to make you feel a certain way, rather than accentuating what the visuals should be making you feel. A pushy soundtrack will annoy.

- Annoying characters. There are a ton of annoying characters in the movies. Some of them make a return.

- Soundwave. Soundwave is one of the better deceptacons but his screen time was limited in this movie. Less Starscream, more Soundwave = good.

- Length. This movie felt very long. It could have had a few unneeded parts cut out of it.

Conclusion:
There are a ton of things to dislike about this movie, and someone could pick at it for days and find so many things to outnumber the good, but at the end of the day, it's a quite enjoyable film. It's so unbelievable but also so easy to escape into. The immersion factor of the film is quite high and I found myself on the edge of my seat during one of the car chase scenes. It snuck up on me so readily that I had to remind myself that it was just CGI effects and that wasn't a real Ferrari Dino getting hit with debris.
I love Transformers, and this movie made up for the second movie.

Score: 7/10. (+1 for being in 3D)