Michael Bay and gang are back (minus Megan Fox) in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I’m not going to waste a lot of time getting into the plot of this film or even a small summary of events. The gist of the movie is quite simple, good robots are defending earth from bad robots (pretty much the same plot in all these films). The good robots, or Autobots, need to get some kind of “McGuffin”, which will no doubt destroy earth and alter the course of human history. That’s it, nothing more, nothing less, and yet, surprisingly this third installment has more plot and character development than its predecessors (which I realize isn’t saying much).
T:DOTM is filled with a ton of action. This film is on more steroids than the 1999 “home-run race” between: Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire (too soon?). The opening of the film, which sets up the limited plot, infuses the film with a brief alternate history lesson that is fun and visually interesting. It’s also the only part of the film void of any explosions, slow motion, or half naked woman. DOTM is the film equivalent of a shark. All sharks do are eat and swim, they’re pure primal instincts. DOTM is no different; this movie is a three-part formula: run for your life (while yelling, of course), look at the semi-naked girl, cue explosion, rinse, and repeat. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is a similar formula we have seen in the first Transformers installment, and unlike the second installment in the trilogy, Bay and Co. have gone back to what made this series work. DOTM is absent of any robot testicles (yes, this happened), racist comic relief, and over complicated filmic devices that serve to move the plot forward, but confuse the audience. Bay’s team manages to deliver a silly fun popcorn flick that fires at all the senses. Even the 3D, which may be the real star of this movie, is well done.
Bay, who originally was adamant that the third film would not be shot in 3D, eventually succumbed to studio pressure. I have to give the man some props for at least putting up a fight for all of us tired of the so-called “third dimension”. And, I have to admit the 3D in the film is maybe the most tastefully done aspect of the film. Prime and all of his comrades have never looked better. ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) has done an amazing job with the visuals in this film, and the 3D only helped to enhance their visual stylings. For those of you that are visual effects junkies, this is a “must see”, and even if your not this will at least make you appreciate the painstaking effort all of those visual artist go through to bring all those 1’s and 0’s to life. For me personally, I continually ask the question, “How in the hell did they make this movie?” I really don’t understand how this stuff is even possible to make. It’s so real looking, the logistics about shooting a project on this scale and magnitude seem impossible to my primitive brain. While the visuals will keep your mind stimulated, for me, the real reason to see this film is for voice-actor, Peter Cullen, who voices super robot, Optimus Prime.
Cullen has never been better. Now, you may only know him as the voice of Prime, but he also moonlights as everyone’s favorite depressed donkey, Eeyore, from the Winnie the Pooh franchise. And, cue the proverbial, “Aaahhhh.” Prime is the only character in this franchise, whose words continue to hold any weight or brevity. I almost feel embarrassed to admit this, but I actually care about Optimus Prime. Shame on you Cullen, shame on you for making me care about a giant fictional robot. In a movie era void of 80’s alpha males, Cullen’s Prime is a more than acceptable replacement, which just goes to prove we don’t need steroid infused heroes like Stallone or Schwarzenegger, but just one made of brawny metal.
In closing, the third installment of Bay’s robot epic is a return to what we loved about the first film. It is a great “popcorn flick”. Sure, its run time is a little long at two and a half hours. And yes, if they cut down the slo-mo shots by about half we would end up with a more reasonable runtime at about two hours. But, DOTM is just what we needed to carry us through the summer. Aside from Thor, this is the second summer popcorn flick I’ve seen that deserves to be called a “summer popcorn flick”. 3 ¼ stars out of 5 (the extra “¼” is for Cullen’s performance).
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