Director: Michael Bay
Writer: Ehren Kruger
Running time: 148 mins (approx)
Certification (UK): 12
Genre: Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi
UK Release date: 29th June 2011
Watched on Sky+ Saturday 18th May 2011.
PLEASE NOTE: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW.
Every now and they you have to watch a bad film just to remind yourself just how good the good ones are. Well, as a fan of Sci-Fi I chose this one because it got a terrible response from the critics but the public (more fool them) didn’t seem to mind it that much. Well, there’s good and bad points but unfortunately for the public, I have to fall on the side of the critics this time I’m afraid. I’ll tell you why after this very brief summary.
The transformers are back for their third outing and perennial teenager Sam Witwicky is also back to save the world, but with a new girlfriend, Carly. The wreckage of a Cybertronian spacecraft was discovered on the moon back in the 1960’s but this information was not passed on to the Autobots. Optimus Prime is not happy about this but they decide to go and find what they can. They discover Sentinel Prime, who was the leader of the Autobots before Optimus. He had invented a device, a portal, before the end of the war. They revive Sentinel and he joins the Autobots. Meanwhile, they are unaware that the Decepticons are watching their every move and are about to turn the whole thing around. Sentinel Prime is key to this but I won’t tell you how here… I’m sure there are still some out there who might want to see this one and anyway the Spoiler Police will be sending me to the moon (again) if I do.
The opening sequence of the film is very well done (IMO); it sets up the story very well and leaves enough mystery to keep the audience guessing. Unfortunately the film cannot sustain this level for long and pretty soon we’re back to the usual ‘big robots hitting each other in the streets of America’ scenario that (personally) I’ve seen enough of. The performances were all very average (IMO), but I’ll give mentions to the voice talents of Peter Cullen as Optimus prime, Hugo Weaving as Megatron and Leonard Nimoy who I thought did a very decent job as Sentinel Prime. Of the human actors, well I guess I should mention Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Carly, Josh Duhamel as Lennox, John Turturro as Simmons, Tyrese Gibson as Epps, Patrick Dempsey as Dylan, Frances McDormand as Mearing, Alan Tudyk as Dutch and John Malkovich as Bruce Brazos.
On the plus side, there were some nice comic moments mainly provided by John Turturro and Alan Tudyk. I will also give a nod to the guys that did the CGI, it’s all top-notch stuff and some of it is quite spectacular. On the downside I found many of the human characters irritating, in particular Sam Witwicky. He comes over as a bit of a petulant kid when he doesn’t get the job he wants. Carly; well I guess she was just there to show off her curves, but as we all know, Michael Bay likes curves. I guess the whole franchise doesn’t quite work for me because the filmmakers are so insistent on putting human traits on alien beings. Every robot, whether it be Autobot or Decepticon has to have a character and most of the time and in a lot of cases, it just makes them look stupid. Over all, not one I’ll be watching again but I guess there will be a lot of fifteen year old boys out there that’ll love it!... NOT RECOMMENDED.
My score: 4.2/10
IMDb Score: 6.3/10 (based on 141,806 votes at the time of going to press).
http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt1399103/
MetaScore: 42/100: (Based on 37 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes ‘Tomatometer’ Score: 35/100 (based on 235 reviews counted at the time of going to press).
Rotten Tomatoes ‘Audience’ Score: 67/100 (based on 124,673 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_dark_of_the_moon/
If you’re crazy enough… You can find me on Facebook at:
http://facebook.com/andy.steel3
FAVOURITE QUOTES:
[first lines]
Optimus Prime: We were once a peaceful race of intelligent mechanical beings. But then came the war between the Autobots, who fought for freedom and the Decepticons, who dreamt of tyranny. Overmatched and outnumbered, our defeat was all but certain. But in the wars final days, one Autobot ship escaped the battle. It was carrying a secret cargo, which would have changed our planet's fate. A desperate mission, our final hope...
[the Ark flies from Cybertron into space... and is gunned down]
Optimus Prime: A hope that vanished.
Walter Cronkite: We now have had confirmation of loss of signal from the Apollo 11. The Apollo 11 is, at the moment, on the far side of the moon.
[at Mission Control, someone turns off a transmitter to the news station]
Director of NASA: Neil, you are dark on the rock. Mission is a go. We have 21 minutes.
Simmons: Don't worry, I speak their language.
[doorman opens sliding hatch]
Simmons: Do svidaniya.
Russian Bouncer: That means goodbye!
[closes hatch]
Simmons: [Wants to impress the Russians with a Russian phrase] Dutch, give me something tough.
Dutch: Eh.
[browses dictionary in panic]
Dutch: Baryshnikov.
Cosmonaut Dimitri: We do speak English.
Simmons: Dutch, you suck.
Dutch: It's a Cyrillic alphabet. It's like all the buttons you never push on a calculator! I don't suck.
[last lines]
Optimus Prime: In any war, there are calms between the storms. There will be days when we lose faith, days when our allies turn against us. But the day will never come, that we forsake this planet and its people.
LINKS:
(Note: All were working at the time of going to press)
Official Site: http://www.transformersmovie.com/
Trailer:
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1 comment:
The only spoiler you have even noted is that the movie isn’t worth the 2 ½ hours of film it took up. The first movie was good, the second was slipping down the same road with the same story told with different people, and the third movie is a travesty. Even with the new girlfriend, Shia still looks like a scared little boy that has no idea what is going on. Granted Megan Fox had man thumbs, but at least she could act, but you don’t have to act well with a script like these movies have had. I saw no need to waste the money on seeing this movie in theaters. I finally sat down to watch this butt numbing movie when I saw it on the Epix page at Dish Online. I thought movie theater chairs were uncomfortable, my office chair during a bad movie is even worse. Although when I told a movie buff I work with at Dish about my dislike of the film, he turned his nose up to me and walked away. Here I though you shouldn’t talk about politics at work, turns out it is don’t talk about movies you don’t like.
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