The third entry in the Transformers series is a cluttered, noisy, ugly mess that brings the series to its lowest point - a point thought impossible to achieve after the disaster that was its immediate predecessor. It proves to be an extremely miserable experience, being an hour too long with a plot too complicated for its own good and characters that, even for the type of movie it looks to be, are too thinly written.
The movie sees the return of its main character, Sam Whitwicky, portrayed at his whiniest by Shia Lebeouf, as he once again aids the Autobots in some sort of war against the Decepticons. Honestly, that’s the most I’m able to describe the plot because I had no clue what was exactly going on for the film’s entirety. Every major detail is presented in such an incoherent manner, with characters rambling endlessly at a pace so rapid that my head was left spinning after just a half-hour into the film. It also didn’t help that the film would periodically stop for inane subplots such as Sam’s mother - for some reason - trying to promote a self-help book to him.
That brings me to the film’s next biggest problem. This is a two-and-a-half-hour-long film, but it really should have been anywhere between ninety to one-hundred minutes. For a simple summer blockbuster, everything should have been presented in much simpler terms and without unnecessary subplots. Why do we need to hear all this complicated backstory that’s being thrown in our faces when all we really want to see is a simple story about two groups of robots in battle? If the simple route was taken, I could guarantee at least forty-five minutes or so would have been cut from the film. And for the better, I might add. I mean, how long could one possibly drag out the notion of a bunch of robots fighting each other?
Speaking of the fight scenes, the film even fails to make these appealing, and it’s the action that’s supposed to be the center-point of the film. Each action scene is presented as loud as it could possibly be, with non-stop explosions and screaming being the driving forces behind these sequences. The editing causes these scenes to jump all over the place, so there is never even really a clear focus as to where all the loud noises and screaming are distinctly coming from. This proves to be especially mind-numbing in the last act of the film, which is essentially all the previous action sequences in the film presented non-stop for forty-five minutes to an even greater degree. About five minutes into this point of the film, you’re already begging for it to end.
The film also includes a huge supporting cast of actors who are clearly all too talented to be wasting their time with this sort of nonsense. However, I guess with the way the economy is going at this point, desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose. The cast includes supporting roles or cameos from the likes of John Turturro, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, Alan Tudyk, and Patrick Dempsey. The majority of these roles are meant as comic relief, although they all fail miserably at providing one single laugh. Instead, they all play obnoxious versions of characters they have previously played, all desperately shouting out one “comical” line after another. For example, take John Malkovich’s Osbourne Cox character from Burn After Reading. Now, take out all the profanity, make him shout even louder than he already did, and then just make sure every single word he says is not funny. And that’s essentially the character Malkovich portrays in this disaster-piece. It shames me to see such talented actors go to waste, but like I said, there are just times when some people need a paycheck, I suppose.
Watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon proves to be one of the most miserable experiences I have ever had watching a movie. It does everything it could possibly do wrong to the greatest degree it could possibly do it. There was not one single bright spot I could think of as I look back on the film. And by that, I mean, there actually were about three or four moments where I remember briefly smiling, but there were so many explosions, screaming, and obnoxious performances that immediately followed that it caused me to forget what I was smiling about. It actually was so obnoxious that just thinking about it now gives me a headache, so I’m going to stop before I do any serious damage to my brain.
0.5/5
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