First, a couple of confessions. As I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm a whore for spectacle. I'm a total sci-fi nerd and big-budget flicks are simply the only place where visual spectacle on the level of a "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" or "Avatar" is possible. To me, there's nothing wrong with escapist entertainment. Are big-budget action flicks going to revolutionize your worldview? No. But why do they have to? If you're really so dreadfully serious that you can't turn it off and enjoy a spectacle for what it is, I truly feel sorry for you. However, there are good spectacles and bad spectacles. Michael Bay has been responsible for plenty on both sides of that equation. Hardly any director is as divisive among movie fans as Mr. Bay. He's made flicks that stand up against any other action flicks of the past 15 years (Bad Boys, The Rock, Bad Boys 2, The Island, Transformers) while also making some complete shitballs (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, Transformers 2). However, whether his movies are on the good side or the bad side of the spectacle equation.. they're going to be big, they're going to be loud, people are going to die, shit is going to blow up and you're going to be in for a ride. Whether that ride sucks or not depends on certain factors that apparently only Mr. Bay is privy to. My second confession is that I love Transformers. Not the film franchise of recent years so much as the old school (known as Gen-1 in fan parlance) cartoons that aired along with GI Joe back in the days of my young childhood. Transformers were a big hit in the Brenner household. Not only because they are giant alien robots (which is, in and of itself, inherently awesome), but because they are heroic, man. Optimus Prime is one of the all-time stand-up dudes. He's like Ned Stark without the idiot streak. He's like Luke Skywalker without the self-doubt and whining. He's a true-blue hero and all around good guy. Sort of like Abe Lincoln plus Captain American plus Maximus. All-around stand up guy. You want Optimus to raise your kids and can leave him around your wife. This 3 minute youtube clip will show you what Optimus Prime was up to back in the 80's and why he's ingrained in my consciousness as a hero for this and every time: (and yes, the music only makes it more awesome) So yes, that's Optimus Prime mowing down half of the Decepticon roster and then taking out Megatron despite a litany of dirty tricks and tactics. Needless to say, once Mike Bay hired Peter Cullen to be the voice of Optimus Prime (you may recognize the voice in the cartoon..), he had me hooked. Some continuity of character and boom.. I'm on board, Mike Bay.
So, with me having confessed that I'm a sucker for spectacle and that I will forever have a soft spot for Transformers generally and Optimus Prime specifically (I had an Optimus Prime poster in my room from about 2003 onward..) enter my Transformers 3 review at your own peril. That being said, however, the Transformers movie franchise has been a troubled one. The first flick is a lot of fun.. and I feel it pretty perfectly captured the spirit of the Gen-1 cartoon that so enthralled the boy I was. At the heart of the Transformers story is a battle of good vs. evil, but it's more than that.. it's an alien civil war that humans have been thrust in the midst of and one heroic side takes the side of humankind even over themselves. There's something admirable and damn heroic about that. And hell, I can be a sappy bastard.. the friendship and even.. love? that is shared between the Autobots and their human friends is a big part of the appeal. So the first movie captured a lot of that feeling and spirit and that was a big part of the draw for me. Sure, there were battles and explosions, but at its heart, the movie was about the relationship between a regular dude and the group of 50 foot sentient alien robots he happened to run into. The second flick sort of lost sight of that heart, amongst other things, and lost its way in a web of bloated new characters, a convoluted plot, incomprehensible action sequences and childish "comedy" in the form of juvenile cracks about sex, balls, race and the like. I'd give the first Transformers a 7.5 or so and Transformers 2 a solid 5. No one's actually said that this is the last Transformers flick.. but it's been hinted as much.. and it certainly seems and feels like it is.. so last go-round Mr. Bay, let's see if the good or evil Mike Bay is going to come around this time.
The opening sequence is damn cool. Basically, it treats the space race of the 1960s as a race to discover alien (Transformer) tech on the moon (there was 21 minutes of radio silence on the first moon mission, after all). (Hence the "Dark of the Moon" of the title) Something long thought lost to the Transformers turns out to have been on earth's moon the whole time.. and this technology turns out to be the key to the entire eons-long war between the Decepticons and Autobots. A long-simmering plot by the Decepticons, lying in hiding after their defeat in the second film, brings the conflict to a head, here on earth, and full-fledged war erupts with humanity caught in the middle. Amongst this background, our erstwhile hero, Sam Wittwicky, tries to move on with his life, with a new girl, and trying to get a "regular" job, now that his friends, the Autobots, have moved on without him.
First, this is a much, much better film than the last go-round. The last flick felt like it was made by a 14 year old boy with a high CGI budget and no adult supervision. WAY too many stupid cracks and just needlessly silly scenes sabotaged the last film from the jump. Here, there are still silly cracks and John Turturro is still WAY over the top and cheesy, but it's been scaled way back to tolerable levels. I did see the flick in 3D (not by choice, although Bay did supposedly work with Cameron on the conversion), and while the 3D is very, very cool for the battle scenes (you're actually able to tell the robots apart, which was borderline impossible in the large battle at the close of Transformers 2) and several other scenes, on the whole.. it doesn't add a lot and it makes the flick needlessly dim, as 3D is want to do. So it's a mixed bag on the 3D. I will say this, it's well done and doesn't look cheap.. it just doesn't add THAT much to the flick as a whole. So the flick feels like grown-ups made it, which is a nice break.. and the "heart" that was largely missing from the last flick has returned, as Sam "shares" several nice scenes with Optimus and Bumblebee. He's given a decent amount of personal drama as well. But let's cut to the chase.. you're coming to a Transformers flick for the battles.. and let me tell you, this one does not disappoint. I literally felt exhausted leaving the theater. The last hour of the flick is one prolonged battle scene.. and it looks incredible. I know of nothing that approaches the level of epic-ness this one achieves other than Return of the King, the last Lord of the Rings flick. Granted, that was a much, much, much better flick all-around, but in terms of a prolonged epic battle? Yeah. That's the neighborhood we're in.
So on the whole, this is definitely a Transformers movie. It's big, it's loud, it's childish in parts.. but it's fun, it's intense without being overwhelming, and I, for one, am always a fan of good old-fashioned heroism. It's good guys vs. bad guys, with the fate of the world at stake.. and the action scenes are so damn well done. What can I say, like I said, I'm a sucker for spectacle.
7/10, a return to form for the Transformers franchise, and I for one am glad Optimus Prime gets to go out on top.. he deserves it. This flick will make $500 million.
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