Rant/Review - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

DISCLAIMER: I do this for me. I take a thought, rant or review and put it here. Like how Dumbledore takes snippets of his memories and puts it in that bowl of other memories. Call it self therapy. Oh, Grammar Nazi's are not allowed. I don't do this for school. I'm not a English major. I don't need General Rommel in my case because I missed something. If you're not my English 257X professor (which is my next class), get off my damn case!

Where do I begin? Rant...

There are multiple approaches to review this movie. On one front, you have the long time fans of the Transformers series. This covers quite a bit of folks who grew up watching the cartoon and seeing the original movie...and loved it. Another front is the group of folks who never seen the original series. The folks who were introduced to the Transformers series with Michael Bay's vision of the franchise. The last group are the people who get paid to impose their opinions to others. I'm talking about paid critics. Their job is publish their opinion so you can make a pre-determination of what the movie is like and if you want to spend the money to go see it. These folks can either swing for the worst or for the best, and they like to hang out at a well known site called Rotten Tomatoes. 

RT collects the reviews of many paid critics as well as reviews from the audience. They take the professional reviews and tally it up in percentage called the Tomatometer. If its above the 50 - 60% range, it is considered "Fresh" (or positive), and below that is called "Rotten" (self explanatory).  RT has the swaying influence of many moviegoers, but is this the right way? IMO NO! You shouldn't base a decision to go watch a movie on this site...or anyone for that matter. Are you a robot? I assume not (That would be kind of cool though.). You really should make your own determination and stick with your convictions. Another reason is because while some of you may lean to look at what the general people are saying, you have to understand that you're either getting completely black or white biased opinions from a never ending supply of fantrolls. Whether if it was positive or not, the general opinion  that you'll see here, or any place else is irrelevant! You have people who either love or hate Michael Bay, any of the actors, the series itself, or they're just posting to troll the board.

 Still, you shouldn't sway yourself to either watch or not watch any movie because of what other people say. You also don't have watch the movie at a theater. You can wait for it to come out on home media. I don't exactly have to watch flicks like Super 8, Bad Teacher, or Green Lantern at the theater because someone told it was good (or not). It's funny though.. I say this, yet when someone asks "should I watch Priest?" I have to say "wait for it to come out on Netflix Instant Stream." The behavior is contagious, but I think I'm getting better at it. I don't think it stops me from reviewing things, but I think it stops me from reviewing stuff out of impulse. To the least, I try. Maybe I should always say that "in the end, you should find out for yourself." /rant

NOW, on to this review!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The 3rd and probably last of Michael Bay's franchise seems to be an unstoppable force in the box office. At this point, I don't think Bay, and Paramount don't give a shit about what the pro critics say. This movie made 454+ million dollars worldwide in less than a week. TF3 obliterated the box office and made over double the film budget, so they're in the green with all your money (And they're going to spend it on drugs!). Does this mean that this was a good movie? Um....well...uhh....lets start with the easiest. 

The visuals were top notch! If you were lucky enough to watch this on a Titan XC screen, my guess was that you were blown away by the visuals. Bay knows how to rock the visual effects, and he is a master when it comes to explosions!

Michael Bay...EXPLODES!

In all seriousness, he made a technically beautiful movie. The details were all over the place. This was also one of the most visually correct films of the series (in the military sense)...except for that dual wing, 4 engine MV-22 Osprey. Yeah, those don't exist, but if Mr. Stark can have an altered supersonic 737 in his movie (Iron Man), Bay can definitely have an imagination too.

Why does Jon Favreau have all the cool flying tech?

  One peeve that I had that was absent in this film was the rehashing of military footage that he filmed. The editors did a terrible job at that in TF2. Navy folks know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the scene with the USS Roosevelt (CVN-71) sinking. The footage that they used prior to the TR sinking was that of the USS Stennis (CVN-74). You can clearly see the number at the bow of the ship and The Island. Later on, they ended up using more Stennis footage. The editors tried to mask the bow number for home media release, but it was clearly seen in the theater. Continuity FAIL is you ask me, but it is also understandable because when Hollywood makes a movie with an aircraft carrier, they use the carrier that's available. In this case, it was the Stennis. Bay also used a modern carrier (USS Constellation CV-64) to portray the USS Hornet in Pearl Harbor which was also terribly edited. Anyway, you won't be let down in the visual department because he has it down.

"We suck again!"

Bay's signature camera work is ever present with this film. He loves to focus on character. Take note to all of his movies that he does his signature "360 pan-around's" which is supposed to bring out more drama I guess? This is Bay's style of filming back when he was doing model filming. There is one thing that I noticed right off the bat with one of his scenes. Does anyone remember The Island? There was a car chase scene (which is Bay's other favorite kind of scene to film) which was rather elaborate. I bet you didn't know that he reused some of that for TF3. Well he did, and my interpretation to that scene is one of Bay's signs of fatigue. He originally did not want to film TF3 right away. He wanted to take a year off, but Paramount said nay to that one. As frustrated as he probably was, and being on the clock, using snippets of other work was a viable option. Rehashing in this case doesn't make it right, but it's not like Bay had a choice in the matter, so while folks scrutinize his editing team again, they need to see the whole story.

You thought I was kidding? I shit you not!

Bay rehashed his shit!

 

Moving onto the characters and story:

 For starters, the Leo Spitz character from TF2 is NOT in this movie. That's a step in the right direction because I thought he was annoying and was only in the movie for comedic relief (he wasn't funny..). Sam picked up a new chick named Carly portrayed by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley after being dumped by the Megan Fox's character (In reality, Bay dumped Fox because she compared him to Hitler..or something like that). I'm going to be the one to say that I liked Rosie's character better than Megan's. Yeah, she may not be the macho that Mikaela was, but she still stood up and took a rather meaningful role when the time came (I won't say it. You need to see it for yourself). IMO, I think she looks prettier too, and to joke around, I rather choose her than Sausage Thumb any day of the week. Like her or not, she portrays the love interest, and Bay presented her as a grown adult who made something of herself as opposed to being a high school jock's concubine, which I never really could let go when it came to the Mikaela character. This is also Rosie's first feature film, so if this doesn't work out, she still has Victoria's Secret to model for.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley

She replaced Sausage Thumb.. I heard Fox is kind of a bitch too.

sadface is sad :(

Other new notable characters is John Malkovich's character Bruce Brazos. A very eccentric and organized boss of Sam's first job. his character was breath of fresh air, and any Malkovich fans would love his role. another funny guy who found his way into this franchise was Ken Jeong. Yeah, the naked Chinese guy in The Hangover who said "you gonna fuck on meee!?!?" That guy. His role role was somewhat minor, but Bay had the mindset to place him in a role that was critical to the storyline. Surprising, right? Still, Jeong portrayed his role in a very stereotypical fashion that some folks in the Asian community may not appreciate (not me). Just be ready sensitive Asian viewers. Keep a lookout for Patrick Dempsey (aka Dr. Shepherd from Grey's), Alan Tudyk (aka STEVE THE PIRATE!), Frances McDormand (aka Chief Gunderson from Fargo...c'mon folks. KEEP UP!), Lester Speight (aka "Terrible" Terry Tate: Office Linebacker) and of course, most of the human cast from the previous movies reprise their roles in one fashion or another.

"You see the world through John Malkovich's eyes. Then after about 15 minutes, you're spit out into a ditch on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike!" - Craig Scwhartz (John Cusack)

The voice actors reprise their previous roles along with some new editions. Most notably, Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime. Bay couldn't have found a better person to fit that role. Nimoy matched the character, and performed very well. I enjoyed his role in the film.

He is not Spock

He is..

Sentinel Prime! With his gigantic blades and shit.

The story picks up 4 years after the events of TF2, and places Sam as a recent graduate who is frustrated by his search for a job as well as not being able to help out the Autobots and NEST. Once again, the Autobots and NEST are searching the globe for Decepticons when Optimus and his crew finds a piece of a Cybertronian spacecraft in Chernobyl which pisses him off because the government was withholding information on a ship that crash landed on the farside of the Moon back in the 60s (Be aware that this is not spoilers. This is in the trailer.). From here on in, I can't comment on the plot because nobody likes spoilers. It is quite a roller coaster, but you should expect that out of Bay. I will go as far as saying that TF3's storyline is much more streamlined and overall better than TF2 and even TF1. Again, you should make the determination as to what is better because well, everyone has opinions. I did wish that Unicron was somehow tied to the plot, but considering his size and his character (Planet Eater), I can see how hard it would be to do him, so for the sake of Bay's franchise, that's fine I guess.

This movie will certainly not sway the hardcore fans of the original series, but TF3 is better suited to new fans of the franchise...and summer moviegoers who love explosions and near mindless action with comic relief and an okay plot. Unless you're a hardcore fan of the original series, I encourage you to watch the movie in some form or another. Theater is optional. If you live near a theater with an awesome HD screen, HD sound, and you're not prone to sickness when it comes to 3D, you should watch it in the theater. Afterall, it is the peak season for movies, so while you're watching Xavier being put in a wheelchair, Hal summoning a minigun, and Elizabeth dance suggestively on the car she is washing, you can spare the time to see autonomous robots clobber each other, booty shots of a Victoria's Secret model, and Bill O'Reilly be a dick to Simmons (not in any particular order)! If you're a snub, hardcore fanboy, carry on. There is nothing to see here.

I would love for any of you to explain this one..

Rating system: I'm going to base it on a 10 point rating scale. In particular, an old scale that I came up with back in 2006 which was inspired by a co-worker of mine back in my East Coast days. Jonathan Polanco was a quiet Dominican man from West New York, NJ (Yes, New York in New Jersey...who knew?), but he's a good friend, and quite the critic when it comes to film. After a string of movies that he was indeed critical of, Jon, Terry (another good friend. We hold our movie traditions to this day.), and I went to go see The Prestige and he wasn't so critical about it. He enjoyed it. It was then that I came said "So, does this mean that you give The Prestige 7 Flying Polanco's?" Terry burst into laughter, Jon chuckled, and I had the satisfaction of using his name to spice up a 10 point rating skill based solely on his critiquing of movies. Based on the Flying Polanco scale, I (as in just me) give TF3 a 6.5. We're looking above average here, and for my preferences, I am pretty critical about flicks. I think the score suits me because I'm pretty much in the middle. I am a fan of the original, but I'm a fan of Bay's vision of the franchise. I also just enjoy movies for what they are (or vice versa). I mean, if I can enjoy documentaries like The Human Experience , AND horror comedic B-flicks like Dead Alive, I think I'm pretty diverse in my movie viewing. Again, everyone has a "Critique Bug", so the determination is up to you. Don't blame me for taking the Red Pill!