Michael Bay knows how to make the summer blockbuster. His formula starts with a simple story that could probably be told in about 30 minutes, but then he expands upon that story with a lot of explosions and debris flying every which way. He then inserts a romantic plot element between two attractive people that grabs the attention of teenage boys and girls. He never shies away from his special effects and the result is a movie that you will enjoy a bucket of popcorn with. The third Transformers film in the series that started in 2007 fits the bill perfectly.
The film starts with the historic moon landing in 1969 of Apollo 11 balancing between archive footage of President Kennedy in black/white and an actor in color, which was somewhat distracting. The background for the film is a government cover-up that there was an alternative purpose to the mission and of course it involved the Transformers.
The script for Transformers was not supposed to impress anyone, but the subtle use of memorable quotes from “Star Trek 2: Wrath of Kahn” spoken originally by Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and then used by Sentinel Prime who is voiced by Leonard Nimoy was a bit too lazy for me. The plot attempts to show the humanity of the Autobots and Decepticons as compared to the previous films which focused more on the government relationship with the Autobots in the war on terrorism from the Decepticons. The visuals of the movie lend themselves to the humanity theme by showing the robot equivalent of blood at times. The writing around the growing romance between Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf)and Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whitel does not come across as believable. Almost too much attention was given to trying to explain why Megan Fox wasn’t in the film, by writing her out of the story and being reminded of her on several occasions. With such a lack of attention to the script also came a lazy ending. With some impressive visuals and battle scenes the film appears lost on a way to wrap up the story. Enter the voice of a woman who apparently is even more conniving than Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons.
Absent from the previous films is Megan Fox who had issues with director Michael Bay and was fired for some choice words that producer Steven Spielberg took offense to. Megan Fox was replaced by Victoria Secret model, Rosie Huntington-Whitely, who more than adequately performs her roll in the film. Lets be honest there isn't a lot of acting in a Michael Bay film, so her ability to look beautiful was one of the few criteria.
The film franchise has done well in the box office, but I have a feeling that this will be the last one in the series as there were some robot deaths that were more extreme than in previous films. While the film is better than the other films it is still only 3 Quacks, which if is probably all I would have given the two previous films if I had been blogging at the time. You should see it in the theater, only because of the special effects and audio track. However, there shouldn’t be a rush to the theater to do so.
(screening date 6/27/11, release date 7/1/11, location AMC Loews Georgetown)
I would have enjoyed it a lot more if there had been more than two female characters, and if they hadn't been the two most obvious female stereotypes (the asshole and the woman who can't fend for herself or even use her hands to grab stuff when she's falling through a building). I'm done with summer blockbusters that assume they have to stick to the "women should be seen but not heard, or if they're heard they are stubborn and wrong" mentality. Ugh. Michael Bay.
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