xt1me

I went to see the early bird special which was in 3D but it turned out to still be cheaper then the next showing which was in 2D.

I think I’ve worked out my problem with 3D. Only things in the middle distance are in focus. I don’t know whether it’s me or the cinema or all 3D but with things far in the background or the extreme foreground I can see the picture overlap. This ruins the stuff-jumping-at-the-camera thing and makes me go cross-eyed trying to bring things into focus.

As for the movie it’s self, well...

It opens up in the past, setting up the fact that the whole space race was to get a man on the moon to investigate a crashed UFO nobody knew about. This kind of belittles human achievement a bit for me but it’s a good a set up as any I suppose.

They use a neat trick to hide their stock footage, alternating between stock footage, footage made to look like stock footage and regular footage. Good editing, it works for you.

On the moon we get to my first problem. The movie is called ‘the dark of the moon’, the dark of the moon is mentioned though out, a number of times. The crashed spaceship landed on the dark of the moon. So why can we see the earth?

Never mind the fact that the dark of the moon is never dark, I can forgive that as the dark of the moon is not actually dark all of the time, it’s just the side that never faces earth. You missed a lot of opportunities for interesting camera work, not to mention budget saving measures. But the fact that it’s THE SIDE THAT NEVER FACES THE EARTH means you should not have a scene where we can clearly see the earth and the spaceship in one shot.

But, okay. Maybe it’s just the angle of the shot. Maybe the camera was far enough away so we seeing the earth behind the moon. It doesn’t look like it, but maybe that’s what you're going for. I didn’t think the first moon landing was on the dark of the moon, though it clearly must have been as it lands right next to the ship.

Whatever. We cut to present day were, with the obligatory Optimus voice over, we see that the Decepticons have been so quite that the Autobots are helping out the US military. (Never mind the fact that you’d think an alien intelligence would be kept away from helping out one government over the others. It’s an American film, whatever.)

The ‘bots and their army dudes are in the Ukraine, apparently Chernobyl happened because of Russian scientists messing with alien tech, (though we don’t find that out until later). You’re not the first movie to name drop for quick and easy way of getting attention. You get a pass on this one.

The ‘bots find the alien tech and everyone’s confused because they all thought movie 1 was the first time aliens came to earth (and the second movie proves nothing apparently).

And then we cut to Sam Witwicky. What just happened. We were having a nice time following the story of the Autobots, it had just set up an interesting plot development, and then we’re yanked over to Sam WhinyBoy with is beautiful apartment and his stunning girlfriend. The girlfriend that we get about one line of dialogue explaining why she’s not Megan Fox. I’ve heard someone else day that it was like they control replaced Megan’s characters name with the new one and that really feels true. It’s nothing against the actress, no matter who was playing the role they were just there to look pretty, she worked well with what she got. Heck even Shia LaBeouf wasn’t all that bad. It’s just that, in my entire life I have never seen a leading role that was more superfluous to a film. You could literally cut the entire character of Sam WhyIsHeHere from the film and it would be better for it. When the DVD comes out, someone better cut all his scenes for a fan edit. In fact, of the scenes he’s in that help the plot along he still doesn’t need to be there. All the work is done by the others.

And he really does whine all the time.

How dare he complain about finding a job. I can’t find a bloody job. In today’s economy he’s lucky to be busting tables. I’d understand if it’s because he doesn’t want to mooch off his girlfriend (who has a fantastic job since she’s obviously paying for everything) but that’s never mentioned. Make his own way in the world? Discovering his future for himself? Forget it. He wants to matter. Yes, that his big thing throughout the movie, he wants to matter. He thinks he can go straight from collage into a career that’ll change the world. Who the hell does he think he is? And a corporate job?? If he wants to matter he should join the army. That’d fit this movie better considering Bay’s infamous love affair with the US military.

Oh, and did he mention he got a medal from the president? Oh, he did, did he? Oh that’s right, only fifty million times.

So inter-cut with the actually plot (you know, with the Transformers, the things in the title) we have to follow Saw WTF finding a job (he complains about interviews. I can’t even get bloody interviews. Stop pissing me off) his parents showing up for … no reason and his girlfriends boss who is clearly better for her in everyway. We then have a bit where they try to shoehorn Sam WhinyMcWhine into the plot with a co-worker being killed by a Decepticon.

Deep Wang.

Why?!?!

I’m not even going to go into it. It was stupid and awkward and too long a set up for one cheap gag. All you need to know is that the co-worker (not dignifying the character by giving his name) gives Sam WasteOfSpace his notes on the plot so WhinyWonder can join the rest of the film.

Back in the real movie, the Autobots have been to the moon and back and found a ‘bot called Sentinel. He was Optimus’ boss/teacher/leader and they revive him with the deus ex machina from movie 2. (By the way movie, we can clearly see what’s happening, you don’t need a character telling us what’s going on. I thought we were used to big budget effects and didn’t make mistakes like this any more.) Sentinel was guarding ‘the space bridge’ some tech he made that they thought could end the war. He had disappeared at the end of the war and now the good guys are worried the Decepticons are after the bridge. The Decepticons have been killing off people who worked for them/hid the ship on the moon and Sam WhyHim is thrust upon us once more.

Also, I get that they’re trying to make the woman in charge a bitch, but the only thing she’s doing is being mean to a guy who has no reason to be there. Not letting Sam WouldYouStopTalking in is what she should be doing. She even says that they have trained personal that can handle things. I think she’s well within the right to kick him out. The guy knows nothing, can contribute nothing and is just in the way.

Anyway, since no one’s listening to him, when obviously he’s the only one who can help. For some reason. He goes to get help from that not-so-secret agent guy, Simmons. Simmons is now rich from selling a ‘tell all’ book about the previous two movies. What a minute, Simmons is rich ad famous but Sam isn’t. That doesn’t make sense. Wait, maybe that’s why his parents looked so well off. So he has even less to whine about.

Anyway, Simmons and his aid, Dutch (stereotypical gay character, though that joke mostly stops after his first scene) find some Russian cosmonauts and they go get info about what the Decepticons want. They wanted the Autobots to wake up Sentinel because he’s the only one who can use the space bridge. Oh no, it’s a trap.

So they all race back to the Decepticons only for Sentinel to betray them. Turns out he was defecting to the Decepticons when the …whatever it was, happened. Sentinel figured that they were going to lose the war anyway and he only they could save their home planet was to just give up and join forces.

So he tares up the place and leaves. The Autobots chase after him. The Decepticons open a portal to bring in enforcements …from the moon apparently. We don’t see them come from anywhere else. Were they all just hiding there? Even the big ships we see later? And weren’t the Autobots just up there? Shouldn’t they have noticed something?

Sam WhyIsHeTheLead meanwhile goes to apologise to his girlfriend. They yelled earlier. Throughout this movie it has been like the two of them were have entirely different conversations. She’s been all ‘I think you’re great and I‘ll love and support you no matter what.’ And he was just ‘whine, whine, whine. I want to matter. I’ve saved the world twice and no one cares. And the president gave me a medal.’ Then they had a fight and now it’s like they’re actually talk to each other at last. So she went off to a party her boss was holding and Sam WentAndGotAClue goes to get her. As they leave Boss Guy tells them he’s evil.

You know movie, a plot twist doesn’t work if you explain it before hand. It’s not even the boss being evil, that wasn’t the most obvious part. It’s the girlfriend's new-car-is-a-Decepticon. All the transformers are ridiculously shiny. Any car that shiny, that stays that shiny, will be a transformer. Robots in disguise my foot.

So yeah. It truns out the boss was working with the Decepticons. This guy is actually an interesting character. He inherented the job from his farther, and he kind of has no choice because the Decepticons can just kill him at any moment. It could have made for a great internal stuggle, he could even still be a jerk. He would have been a much better lead.

Anyway, he threatens Sam WhatIsHeStillHere with the fact that the Decepticons can kill his girlfriend at any time so he has to go to the Autobot headquarters and ask what they’re going to do next. A small Decepticon, disguised as a watch, goes with him. It can apparently tap into his nevus system, so they know all that he sees or hears, so he wont be able to signal for help. We don’t see this though. All we see is that it can cause pain if he doesn’t do what they say. Shia LaBeouf’s not a bad mime.

Meanwhile the Decepticons have issued an ultimatum. Kick the Autobots off the planet or we’ll kill you. So they do. (So much for not negotiating with theorists.)

Sam WikiLeaks meets up with the Autobots and a some army guy from the first movie at the big space shuttle they’re using to kick the earths only help against the Decepticons off the planet.

You know, the adventures of the ‘Autobots who are not allowed off the base because they’re kind of assholes’ and 'the humans they hang around' with could have made for an interesting movie. How they interact, stories they could tell… They’d probably have less chance for fight scenes though, so we got this instead.

The ‘bots say good bye, the spaceship gets blown up, and the Decepticons attack the city.

Now we get to the movie Michel Bay wanted to make.

I say this because of the almost audible shift change in mood, action, movie rating, everything. It’s almost like the projectionist dropped a reel. It does that black cut thing and we come back to a load of machines we’ve never seen before invading a city. The Decepticons have got big metal blimp things and alien planes from somewhere and are randomly blowing things up. Bay gets to do what he does best and he rest of the film is one long fight scene. Which frankly, is what we were waiting for. This is the Transformers movies, the rest up ‘till now was prologue.

Sam WhyAreTheyTryingToMakeHimAnActionStar decides he needs to get to his girlfriend. (The spy Decepticon had dropped off his wrist when the shuttle blew up so that was kind of pointless.) He gets some help from the now disbanded NEST (the guy who hung out with the Atuobots) and the go the city. When the get there the place is a wreck, looking like any good invaded-by-aliens city should and there is a Decepticon randomly killing people (it’s kind of dark. You can see their bones) but before they can get shot the Autobots show up. They didn’t get blown up after all, they hid in the stage one rocket and rode it down when it broke off. Whoop-de-do. Like we really thought they were dead.

So they all have to get to the space bridge to stop it (rescuing girlfriend along the way of course) because Sentinel is using it to bring Cybertron to the earth so they can use the humans as slaves to rebuild their home. Kind of makes you wonder why they were just killing people willy-nilly. Seams a waste of resources.

Wait a minute. They’re bringing Cybertron to earth. Wont that tear the planet apart?
Wait, maybe there going to do some weird merge thing. After all, they have Decepticons all over the world setting this up. It would kind of go against the fact we’ve established that the bridge works like a portal but it’s alien science, I can give it a pass. Besides, It could make for some great scenes where patches of alien architecture appear throughout the world. Because we all know they’re going to start the process before the heroes reach it. After all, the only thing better then saving the world at the last minute is saving it just after, so we can see just how bad it could have been.

So there’s a lot of running around. Autobots and Decepticons fighting, Miltiary people shooting things. People we don’t know die. Sam kills Starscream.

Oh, come on! You should have done the whole jam-the-explosive-in-it thing to the giant worm so Optimus wouldn’t have to save you (again) and left the only Decepticon most people know besides Megatron alone. Not to mention that the grapply thing would have come in handy earlier. You know, when you were hanging out a falling building!

Whatever. Robots get ripped apart (look what we can get away with because they’re made of metal. Say bye-bye spinal column) Autobots that had a handful of spoken lines die and Cybertron starts to appear in the sky.

WHAT!

You’re making a planet appear just outside our atmosphere?! Are you insane?! Never mind the fact that your new work force is all going to get killed, the planet your standing on is going to thrown out of orbit or ripped appear with the gravitational forces. You will all die. And what kind of damage will it do to Cybertron itself? Did you think this though?!

And at one point the process it interrupted and only about a third of Cybertron got though, and it just hangs there. Never mind it’s a hunk of planet! The fact that it’s a machine world might make it inert. But it’s still of hunk of rock/metal that just hanging there. It should start colliding with the earth. Gravity people! Look it up.

Lets just forget this travesty of science. And move on to another travesty.

It didn’t bother me much because I’m not a huge Start Trek fan, and I was warned it would happen, but I can defiantly see how when Sentinel says “The needs of the many out way the needs of the few” it could piss people off. It’s not like the line makes any since in context either. He’s talking out fixing up their old planet with enslaved humans. What many is he talking about? What few? The fact that he goes on about how they used to be gods kind of undermines the moralising message. It’s such blatant pandering to the fact they got Leonard Nimoy in their film it’s like they’re insulting their whole audience.

So Anyway, the boss/bad guy human restarts up the space bride when it’s stopped with the universally accepted technical technique of thumping it and has a scuffle with Sam WhyIsNotDeadYet. This kind of goes against his character as, since he was obviously only interested in saving himself, he really should be cowering somewhere rather then helping the guys he’s got to know will off him if they get tired of him. But then, of course, they’d be no one-on-one ‘fair’ fight so our “hero” can save the day.

So the Autobots finish off the space bride and Sentinel and Optimus fight. Girlfriend goads Megatron into backstabbing Sentinel to prove his superiority.
This wasn’t a bad idea on the part of the writers; it was just so incredibly blatant. Subtle, this movie is not.

So, Megatron kills Sentinel and Optimus kills Megatron. He tried to pull a whole you’d-be-nothing-without-me thing but no one would bye it. You can’t get me to believe these are mortal enemies. Opposing generals, yes, but opponents along the lines of Batman and Joker? Not a chance. Nothing like this was established. Maybe you should have had a Transformers movie about the actual Transformers.

Yadda-yada-yadda, the day is saved, the end.

You know, when I left the theatre I was ok with the movie. Obviously he second half was all it should have beeen, it was defiantly all anyone was expecting. But the more I think about it the angrier I get.

I am so glad I didn’t pay full price for this.

Only worth a rent. Maybe.