Transformers: Dark of the Moon

I'll say this before I begin the review. I enjoyed the first Transformers. Sure it was stupid, but it was an enjoyable Summer popcorn flick. I HATED Revenge of the Fallen though. It completely destroyed any and all of my childhood memories of Transformers. It was loud and noisy (not in a good way), had an over abundance of humping and dick jokes, and the "comic relief" were two blatantly racist and unfunny robot twins. Naturally, this caused me to despise the possible sequel before it was even announced. I had zero expectations for Dark of the Moon because of this.

Now for the big shocker, I really enjoyed this movie. The plot was a laughable, but good attempt at a darker story. The acting was just ok, but the voicework for the transformers was pretty good for the most part. The new female (I'm not including her under "Actors" for a reason....) was abysmal. She was so bad that I wanted Megan Fox back...which should never happen. Also, like the other films, the humor was just not funny and offensively stupid at points. It made up for these shortcomings with some great action sequences, and phenomenal music, and I'm not just talking about the score.

The story was bad like all the other films. However, I do have to give Bay credit for trying to give us a darker and more serious story this time around. The Decepticons are attempting to take over the world...again... This time around, they want to activate an ancient teleportation device in order to bring their allies to Earth in order to enslave humanity and create a new world. It wasn't anything special, but it was leagues above the other films. Like I said before, I have to give Bay credit this time around. There were few times where I honestly got teary because of things that happened. Teary during transformers? shocking I know!

The acting was competent but nothing special. Shia Lebeouf was...meh, although I do have to give him credit for trying to put more emotion into scenes when they mattered. The only problem is his character is still an annoying twat. All of the other humans did their job, but John Malkovich was just wasted. The only exception to the "good acting" was Ken Jeong (who I normally love) as an Asian nerd named Jerry Wang...(I'll get to this later...) Any comedian will be painstakingly annoying when put into a Michael Bay film. All of the voice actors for the transformers did a memorable job. Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving return as Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively. My only complaint is that Megatron was barely in the film. The other major transformer was Sentinel Prime, Optimus' mentor (voiced by Leonard Nimoy). I loved him, for both his design and his role in the story.

Now for the new female lead. You might be wondering why I'm not including her in the acting section. This is because being called an actor/actress implies that you have some sort of ability to act. This person had none...She was dreadful...she was abysmal...she made me want to gouge my eyes out. And she needs to seriously relax with the botox. A barbie doll looks more realistic than she did...and barbie dolls don' have huge fish lips.

The comedy...was terrible. There were one or two moments where I chuckled, but it was, for the most part, toilet humor. Fortunately, none of the humor involved John Turtoro's butt. Unfortunately, it did involve a few dick jokes and more racial stereotyping. Nothing as bad as the twins, but equally unfunny and childish. The twins were replaced by the Brooklyn accent mini transformer from RotF and a new sidekick who is basically Butthead, from Beavis & Butthead, in robot form and not nearly as funny. Now for the worst part...Ken Jeong as Jerry Wang who wants to be named Deep Wang. I honestly wish I was kidding when I said that that was his last name. An Asian man named Deep Wang...since this is a Michael Bay film, do I need to explain what kind of jokes were involved with this character? Good, because I won't. My biggest complaint with the humor is how it completely killed the serious tone set by previous scenes. This doesn't just happen once or twice..it's consistently doing it.

The action sequences were incredibly well done this time around. I could actually tell, for the most part, what the hell was going on. There some amazing set piece action sequences in this film. The only problem was that most of them were pointless when the next scene happens. I can forgive them though because of the thought and detail that went into them. They were incredibly memorable.

Now for the music. Naturally, Steve Jablonsky's score was outstanding. All of his music fit their respective scenes very well. He updated the main theme, and it sounds fantastic. The score used for the final battle/climax has the proper oomph that it should and never feels overbearing. Now for the part that surprised me. I don't hate Linkin Park, but I'm not the biggest fan in the world. Their songs for the first two films never felt out of place but they always felt like free advertising more than anything. Not this time around. While the heavier parts still felt out of place, the beginning of the song was used to amazing effect. It created some amazing atmosphere for the darker moments of the film. I honestly don't want to spoil it.

Overall, I can recommend this film. The acting is so so, the humor is unfunny and racist, but it more than makes up for it with its attempt at a darker story, expertly filmed action sequences and some fantastic music.

I've never done this before in one of my review...but there is something else that needs to be mentioned. There are possible spoilers ahead, but they need to be talked about. There were a few scenes that were disgustingly offensive. The area of the climax was named "Ground Zero." There were many occasions of crumbling buildings and enemy planes running into the sides of buildings. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but these immediately made me think of 9/11 and the horrors of that day. The other scene, while making sense in the story's plot, felt really out of place for a film like this. Megatron blows up the Lincoln Memorial and sits on the remnants like a throne, while a smaller decepticon crushes Linclon's head. The other big thing was a scene that made me think of the failed Challenger space shuttle mission that resulted in the death of 7 brave men and women.