The kindest thing one can say about Transformers 3 is it’s not as bad as the second instalment. That’s damning with faint praise however, given the second film was an execrable, obnoxious piece of trash, and a massive step down from the more acceptable first. It’s simply a case of numbers: the first took more than $700 million worldwide against a $150 million budget; and the second took more than $800 million against a $200 million budget. So it’s safe to assume that there’s a built-in audience ready to lap up director Michael Bay’s latest act of automated aggression.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that Dark of the Moon is still risible, hectoring and moronic, and not good enough to stand as disposable popcorn entertainment. What’s even more frustrating is there’s evidence within the movie of how skilled Bay is when it comes to orchestrating lavish, noisy mayhem (or ‘Bayhem’ as it’s referred to). Let’s not forget The Rock was acceptable dumb fun and floated by a quirky sense of interplay between Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. If only that same wit were on display in this mechanical melange.
Unlike the dreadful second movie, this one is floated, at least partially, by a nifty idea, although any sense of surprise was spoiled long ago by the trailer. Essentially, the film speculates that the Apollo 11 moon landing was a cover-up, so that a bunch of government types could investigate a downed Transformer ship and steal some technology from the surface. So far, so Capricorn One but it’s a nice idea that expands the notion of the Transformers universe and paints the Decepticons/Autobots battle on a larger scale. That quirky outline, plus two outstanding action sequences late on (one involving a mass sky dive; the other in a collapsing building), are the good things.
The bad news is the nitty gritty of the narrative soon falls into the usual convoluted fluff, involving plot devices called space pillars and giant robots leaping through the space-time continuum to wreak havoc on Earth. Even more annoying however is the sense that Bay is his own worst enemy. All of the Transformers films have had a problem being caught between B-movie trappings (whereby robots thump each other), and the needs of a cynical franchise. They are however exacerbated in this latest instalment, to the point that when the final battle rolls around, one’s mind has been so pulverised into submission, you simply don’t care.
It’s the usual story whereby Bay pads out the narrative with a load of pervy juvenile nonsense (up-skirt shots of Megan Fox replacement Rosie Huntington- Whitely) and shrill, shrieking, bug-eyed acting. Content with working at a level of hysteria when it comes to effects, Bay clearly has a detrimental effect on his performers as well, to the extent that you simply want the screaming to stop. Shia LaBeouf, never the most charismatic young actor, reaches his nadir here, devolving into grotesque overacting that precludes sympathy, and the supporting performers range from the ill-advised (John Malkovich; Ken Jeong) to the forgettable (Frances McDormand).
It’s a real shame as the sections with the Transformers themselves are perfectly acceptable without ever being spectacular. Create a nippy 90 minute movie based entirely around them and you’d have a movie that, although not a masterpiece, would be less cynically minded. Ultimately, this is where Bay’s skill lies. He doesn’t do humour, he doesn’t do emotion and he doesn’t do zaniness, but boy does he do indulgence. The budget of Transformers 3 could probably have bailed out Greece and the rest of the Eurozone; it’s just a shame all that money doesn’t buy you memorability.
By the time the ending rolls around, there’s no sense of catharsis, no sense of the emotion that proper popcorn cinema is capable of conveying. There’s no sense of the significance that should come with a director bowing out of a major franchise (as Bay is purported to be doing) – in fact there’s no sense of conclusion at all. Just a hulking, mechanised product that bashes you around the head and then expects unconditional love.
Rating: 4/10
