Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
7/4/11
Fool
me once, shame on you, fool my twice, shame on me, fool me three times
and, well, I’m just an idiot. We’ve clearly been to the Transformers
movie well enough times now to know that the series is a deal with a certain
kind of cinematic devil: so desperate are Michael Bay’s Independence
Day Hasbro epics to entertain every possible viewer that they seem specifically
designed to irritate every possible viewer almost as much. I’ve been
a fan of the movies, even liked the widely despised 2nd one enough to give
it a cautious thumbs-up, but I also see them for what they are, and Transformers:
Dark of the Moon is like its predecessors on steroids. Astonishing
visuals, bone-crunching action and some really terrific supporting characters
vie for screen time with increasingly unlikable lead characters, grating
comic relief and queasy ethnic stereotypes. Dark adds 3D to
the equation and does so with a vengeance: this is by far the most
remarkable mainstream blockbuster in the format since Avatar.
It also includes the most well-developed story of the movies, one complex
enough that I’ll actually have to throw up a spoiler warning later to adequately
discuss it. Several quality supporting players are added to the mix,
giving this film the most thespian heft of the franchise. On the
downside, the innocent heroics of the original are a distant memory, with
Shia LaBeouf’s increasingly manic performance as the ever more unlikable
Sam Witwicky paired with a spectacularly overmatched acting debut by Victoria’s
Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as the replacement for the departed
(and much-missed) Megan Fox. And the third act, while filled with
astonishing visual sound and fury and some really great moments, just goes
on and on and could have done everything it does well in half the time.
Dark of the Moon isn’t a great movie by any stretch and parts of
it will inevitably leave you squirming in your seat. But it’s also
a hell of a thing to see.
Flashbacks
reveal how the Kennedy-era space race was in fact a race to reach the moon
in time to investigate a spaceship that had crashed there, one carrying
a cargo that could have turned around the civil war between heroic robots
the Autobots and their villainous counterparts the Decepticons. In
the present, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is finding himself not nearly
as good at civilian life as world-saving heroism. He’s unemployed,
dumped by his Michaela and now living off the good graces of his girlfriend
Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), who works with wealthy businessman and
car enthusiast Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey)… a little too closely for
Sam’s taste. He fumbles one job interview after another before finally
getting a job working in the mailroom for vaguely crazy Bruce Brazos (John
Malkovich). There, he meets an even more-crazed conspiracy theorist
(Ken Jeong), who gives him information tying the Decepticons to the moon
before being thrown out his office window by the bird-like robot Laserbeak.
Sam takes this info to NEST force where humans like Lt. Col. Lennox (Josh
Duhamel) work side-by-side with Autobots like Optimus Prime (voice of Peter
Cullen). National Security chief Charlotte Mearing (Frances McDormand)
has taken a new interest in their activities since an artifact found at
the Chernobyl nuclear site revealed the existence of the long-silenced
Apollo 11 cover-up. Prime and his fellow bots race to the moon and
find his powered-down predecessor Sentinel Prime (voice of Leonard Nimoy)
and a few pieces of the technology he carried, a time and space bridge
that could transport anything from the final days of their planet Cybertron
to Earth. When Mearing refuses to allow Sam to rejoin the fight against
Megatron (voice of Hugo Weaving), who’s licking his wounds in an African
compound, he turns to disgraced CIA agent Seymour Simmons (John Turturro)
and his mysterious new right-hand Dutch (Alan Tudyk). Together, they
discover a conspiracy dating back to the end of the original space program…
one about to bear fruit in an all-out Decepticon invasion of Earth.
When
I saw the first few movies in the new 3D technology, I assumed it was only
a matter of time before practically every major summer movie would be employing
the same levels of imagination and quality to the format as Beowulf
and The Final Destination, but instead
blockbusters that use the third dimension as an excuse to do anything but
take extra ticket money from you have been few and far between. But
say what you will about him as a filmmaker and a person, but Michael Bay
is not a man given to half-measures, and at a rumored budget of 400 million
dollars, with specially colored prints that project Dark of the Moon
in brighter colors to compensate for the dark glasses you’re wearing to
watch it, this is one amazing 3D spectacle. Bay understands the power
of reflective surfaces and textures in the format. While anyone should
marvel at the astonishing sight of a gigantic mechanical snake snapping
a glass skyscraper in two, I was also struck by how much the PACE 3D cameras
had captured the texture of the characters clothes, and I haven’t seen
actors’ skin photographed in such a lifelike manner since Dimension.
The early sequences on the moon are a highlight, but throughout there’s
a great sense of depth to the proceedings, and the filmmaker who helped
to popularize the use of frantic cutting in action blockbusters keeps his
camera more steady so we can actually focus on the amazing sights he’s
showing us.
Ehren
Kruger’s story, proposing a secret, Transformer-based history of the last
few decades, is quite clever, and the machinations through which Megatron
stands on the precipice of World Domination are well-constructed.
The script introduces several fun new supporting players, wisely continuing
to build on the role of Turturro’s Agent Simmons, who has grown from a
disbelieving buffoon in the original to a kind of Loser Superman who, with
his endlessly skilled right-hand Dutch, could bring the Decepticon hordes
to their knees themselves if anyone would just listen to them. Turturro
and Tudyk are so good in these cleverly-written roles, and strike such
sparks with McDormand, that I could easily imagine them as the stars of
their own spinoff movie, one which would probably be better than what we
have here. I also really enjoyed Malkovich, as a boss so crazed (the
way he enforces the colors of the employees coffee mugs like a matter of
national security is a hoot and a half) he could anchor his own workplace
comedy with ease. Not so successful is Jeong’s Jerry Wang, who suffers
from the actor’s willingness to play to a planet visible only through a
telescope mounted in the back row if you let him.
Of
course, the same can be said of LaBeouf, so winningly courageous in the
original Transformers and now playing Sam
like some sort of overcaffeinated psychopath. The Revenge
of the Fallen sequel saddled him with one act of loserhood after another
(sorry, Optimus, I can’t call the President to vouch for your honor, I’ve
got classes to go to! Sorry, Michaela, can’t keep our Internet date,
I’ve got a party to go to!), and when Dark of the Moon continues
the streak, he seems to have tailored his performance to go with the flow.
A little of his desperation to wring laughs out of his character’s misfortunes
in the opening scenes goes a long, long way, and while the film intends
us to sympathize with his being stuck on the outside looking in at the
brave new world he discovered, the red-faced nut screaming at his every
misfortune really doesn’t seem like anyone the government would trust.
It doesn’t help that Huntington-Whiteley makes such an inauspicious acting
debut (keep your chin up, Rosie: check out some of Jessica Lange
and Kim Bassinger’s early work and then start hitting those acting classes
hard). While Bay’s camera leers at her curves just a hair less outrageously
than it did Fox’s, she delivers none of the can-do charisma her predecessor
brought to her role and strikes not a single romantic spark with LaBeouf.
It doesn’t help that the selfish, unheroic Carly isn’t nearly as good a
role as Michaela, but Huntington-Whiteley’s line readings are enthusiastically
flat, there’s more than one reaction shot where her expression is a mystery,
and worst of all the plot pivots late in the game on a speech Carly gives,
and it does not go well. I’m not here to pile on, and I hope someday
we can all look back and laugh about how far she’s come, but hers is as
wooden a performance as you’ll see in a modern blockbuster, and LaBeouf’s
as inappropriately hammy. Rare to see a movie be this entertaining
in spite of its lead characters. Cullen once again does his job,
providing iconic heft to Optimus Prime’s vocals, and Duhamel and Gibson
remain rock-solid heroes in their military roles.
*****SPOILER
ALERT: YES, THERE ARE ACTUALLY SURPRISES IN TRANSFORMERS:
DARK OF THE MOON AND YOU’LL LIKE IT BETTER IF YOU DON’T KNOW THEY’RE
COMING*****
But I’d be remiss in discussing the movie if I didn’t talk about the twist
that unmasks both Gould and Sentinel Prime as Decepticon collaborators,
and provides Dark of the Moon with narrative juice neither of its
predecessors possessed. Kruger has fashioned a pretty solid story
about the pressing issue of our time: whether it’s OK to go along
with whatever makes you money and/or accomplishes your goals, or if some
decisions must simply come down to what is right no matter the personal
cost. Because both Dempsey and Nimoy are actors associated with heroic
roles, their casting helps to sell the surprise, but they’re both also
very good at being bad. Dempsey, in fact, is nothing short of sensational
as the squirrely Gould, who keeps looking for an angle right to the bitter
end, and he provides the movie with something the franchise has always
needed: a human villain for Sam to fight on the ground while Optimus
and one or more other giant robots are slugging it out above (whomever
next attempts to reboot the Godzilla franchise: take note).
And Nimoy hilariously mocks us with an iconic Star Trek moment while
pleading the case for backstabbing and treason. TV fans who watch
the series finales of The Event and Smallville back in May
will also wonder why everyone got the idea to bring an alien planet to
Earth at the same time, although given how long T3 has been in production,
it can probably take credit for having had it first. *****END OF SPOILERS*****
As
I mentioned, once all the pieces are in place for a climactic humans-vs.-decepticons-vs.-autobots
spectacle ten times larger than that of the original, it also seems to
go on about ten times longer. While each individual piece of it is
visually breathtaking, dramatic momentum is harder to come by, and Sam
keeps wussing out at moments when all signs point to him stepping up and
finally putting someone else ahead of himself. But there are still
so many good characters, so many amazing sights, and so much cool action
on display that I can only quibble so much with Transformers:
Dark of the Moon. Anyone who expects the crazy tonal shifts and
uncomfortable wackiness of the previous films to go away is dreaming, so
if you found them unbearable before, you’ll likely do so again. But
for fans of 3D, giant fighting robots, John Turturro and Patrick Dempsey,
there’s an awful lot here to like if you can make peace with the fact that
nobody could possibly stand the entire freaky package. |
