Release Date: June 28, 2011 (9pm in 3D and IMAX; 2D release: June 29)
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Director: Michael Bay
Screenwriter: Ehren Kruger
Starring: Shia LaBeouf
, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Ken Jeong, Patrick Dempsey, Alan Tudyk, John Turturro, Leonard Nimoy
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense prolonged sequences of sci-fi action violence, mayhem and destruction, and for language, some sexuality and innuendo)
Official Website: Transformersmovie.com
As everyone predicted…..
To put it bluntly, I’m left with only one real opinion of the third Transformers film installment, and it comes to you in the form of a mathematical equation. It goes like this…..
This…
Plus This…
Plus This…
Equals This…
To be honest, Rosie Hunting really wasn’t as bad as the reviews would have you to believe. She holds her own despite the fact that she only serves as one skinny piece of eye candy. The problem with Rosie’s acting didn’t lie in her lack of talent, but rather with the poorly written script. And just like with Natalie Portman in Star Wars, if the script is bad, so follows the acting.
Everyone understands that Michael Bay is the evil offspring of action movies; explosions, explosions, and more explosions coupled with random sex and skin exposing scenes that have very little to do with the plot is his trademark film making technique. In fact, much of the film doesn’t actually make sense and the unnecessary character additions cause for and even bigger cluster fuck than I’m sure Mr. Bay was going for.
So Was There Anything Good?
Of course the film’s CGI technology was of a quality that would have James Cameron shaking in his boots. But, as I’m sure many of you who know me already know, I don’t actually enjoy the Transformers movie franchise for it’s writing qualities. The animation has always grabbed me and this third installment presents a new level of CGI quality never mastered by anyone else in the field. The battle scenes were much more clear and precise and allowed me to differentiate between Decepticon and Autobot a TON better, and made for a realistic integration into the world of non CGI actors. However, even with the quality of animation and special effects, I still found myself snoozing away, especially during the last half hour of the film.
The most interesting aspect of the third Transformers film came at the beginning. Bay used cleverly shot clips of actors playing presidents Nixon and Kennedy intermixed with actual footage from the historic day America first set foot on the moon. Much like X-Men, Transformers 3 uses actual historic events as a supplement for the films plotline. In addition to being a very well planned alternative history lesson, this introduction help to solidify one very important aspect in America’s history…Nixon got to be apart of the coolest shit!
Well It Sounds Like The Movie had A Lot Of Potential
Once the opening sequence closes out, the film takes a quick and rocky decline into the pits of terrible film making with a shot of Rosie Huntington’s oiled ass walking up the steps of a cheap apartment owned by Sam Witwicky, played by Shia Lebeouf. It’s within this scene that we get a glimpse of what is to come for the next 2 hours and 45 minutes.
As always, casting choices (both in the voice and live action varieties) for the movie are literally flawless. If only the character choices were as good. There were a few brief moments while watching the movie when I wondered if I had sat down in a Tardis and traveled to the future to the day of the next Muppet’s movie release. It certainly felt like Jim Henson did most of the character designs. The only thing this movie was missing were a few Fraggles and Miss Piggy jumping in with a final judo chop to Megatron’s metallic balls. They would have at least been an improvement on the annoyingly ridiculous miniature autobots that wheeled around muttering stupid one-liner after one-liner.
As the film meandered around the explosions and sexual innuendos, I realized that the plot itself could have been summed up in under one hour, much like the previous two films. What kept the movie going were the multiple action scenes. The third film presents nothing new and, in many instances, much of the seemingly powerful bits of oratory delivered by Optimus Primes can be found (in some shape or form) in films one and two.
As stated above, the last half hour of the film left me in a state of slumber…or least I wanted to sleep. The noise from the multiple explosions prevented that. I became so bored that even the parts of the movie I would have made fun of with my wife I didn’t bother smirking at. I’m one of those snobbish movie goers who enjoys sitting through the credits, and I didn’t even bother sticking around as I was begging for the ending to come and get the Hell out of that seat which had caused my ass to ache with pain. (And it still hurts!)
OK, So The Movie Flat Out Sucked Then
This is not a Transformers movie I will be purchasing come the DVD release date. Sure, its special effects were top notch and, overall, had some great acting. John Malkovich is the man! But no amount of CGI mastery and acting talent could have saved this Michael Bay flop.
2 out of 10 stars
