Day-dream Devotee.

Any movie enthusiast would obviously agree that if the middle franchise of your trilogy involves a giant humanoid robot anal-raping a cement mixer in front of the pyramids with two over-talkative ghetto robots that fart, the only way from there is up. luckily I had the chance to travel outside my country to watch Michael Bay’s redemption myself. So here we go.

 

Robo-Jesus is back, battery lickers!

I went in to the theatre with an opened mind and a decision that I would treat this sequel more fairly. Why? Because to be frank, I had a lot of hassles with Revenge Of The Fallen so I wasn’t really expecting much with Dark Of The Moon.  Especially when.. 

“It’ll be be better than the last one, it will be much more darker and more emotional”

.. quite succeeded. has become phrase of the year that Michael Bay repeatedly says throughout the media for the past year about what he has in store for the fans that are afoot for his third treat. When I finally walked out of the theatre, I would say that Bay -

So what is it about? Here’s a short-trip: 

A few months clear of college, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has a hot new girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), and a lot of time on his hands: he can’t get a job to save himself, no matter how many times he mentions that “POTUS” gave him a medal. 

We learn this after a handy prologue that explains how Earth ended up in the pickle that won Witwicky his medals. To wit, how the Autobots and Decepticons’ war came to Earth via… the Moon! Yes, it turns out an Autobot spacecraft crashed into the dark side of the Moon back in 1961, and the ensuing space race between the USA and USSR was not so much to make giant leaps for mankind, but to recon some sort of alien technology. 

Since then - and since we last left Optimus Prime and his friends - the Autobots have been working with the US military, popping off around the world to dish out justice to an assortment of central casting villains of nondescript non-Caucasian appearance. 

Meanwhile, people with intel about NASA’s Space Race-era involvement with the Autobots are being picked off one-by-one by a Decepticon assassin (Laserbeak). 

The extended US military/Autobot crew puts two and two together to make five, and a sulking Optimus throws a bitch fit back at the base to convince the Secretary of Defense (Frances McDormand) to allow them to retrieve the crashed spaceship’s pilot - Sentinel Prime - from the Moon to avoid certain Decepticon victory. Megatron, exiled in generic Africa, gets wind of all this and springs into action, too. Eventually you will learn that there is a plan afoot to reboot Cybertron in downtown Chicago, which endangered the human race.

All of this and the film is not even a third of the way through

Relating about whether or not Dark Of The Moon impressed me, the fact that our country won’t even get the chance to sip this thirst-quenching summer blockbuster made me seeDark Of The Moon as a glass that’s half-full rather than half-empty. 

So let’s get down to the big question. How’s that girl replacing Megan Fox? To be honest Megan Fox at this point wa.. wait what? Oh, the other question, you mean? The “was it good or not” one? Okay, okay, pardon me.

For me, yes, Dark Of The Moon clearly exhibits things that defined Michael Bay as a director. It’s a massive, explosive, boisterous, rowdy, mouth-agaping movie filled with immoderate special effects spectacle that might as well  be called “Return Of The Most Orgasmic Computer Generated Destruction Derby Of All Time 3”. It was just as grand as you cinematic devotees have been expecting. Nothing more. It’s just how it’s always been right? Since the 2007 hit, Bay has definitely outdone himself in altering a pop-culture fad into a cinematic phenomenon. How did these robot toys from the 80s turned into the Transformers movies we know today? Through Michael Bay. Alien robot transforming into earth’s fancy vehicles and fighting upon our planet? It may sound cheesy, and some fanatic worshippers might think that Bay ruined it for them, but to be honest over the past few years I’ve seen it  as no less than awesome. It is safe to say that nobody else could do the “Groong! Voom, Pew pew pew! BOOM! Zeep zeep zaaapp ngiiiing nging gruk graaaak!!” with this old-fashioned cartoon quite like Michael Bay. We gotta give it to him in that extent. Not giving him credits for those efforts is such a travesty of appreciation. And trust me, those are indeed the sounds of Transformers, not an Eid Al-Adh sacrifice ritual.

One of the things that made me see Dark Of The Moon as a glass that’s half-full is the way it looks. The visuals are, certainly, fantastic. What helps kick in a little juice to the awesomeness is the 3D. I don’t know whether It was the cinema here or was it the 3D-enhanced pictures that the film has, but the 3D worked unbelievably well. This is the best 3D experience I’ve had yet, even better than AVATAR. Assuming that this movie was done by dozens of people that endured the complexity of the graphic works, I’d say the visual effects artists and technicians of Dark Of The Moon did one hell of a job. I can only imagine that the costs of these astonishing visuals were some crazy late nights, short tempers, and (most probably) some love relationship that the artists were staging. Dark Of The Moonoffers some of the best action sequences I’ve seen on the big screen even when compared to its two successors. The shots were compelling, and the battle scenes really drove you to a point where you might forget that you were actually watching piles of Hollywood clichés. So visual-wise,  Dark Of The Moon luckily keeps you intact and happy until the end with only two options left : Exhausted or exhilarated. Sadly, the entire movie can only survive to that level alone. 

I imagine that this is what happened during the pre-production stage :

Producers: Okay, so we have the budget for the third installment of this franchise. Do you have any idea, Michael? 

Bay: Don’t worry, I had it all figured out. There will be choppers, and BOOM! Decepticons attack the choppers, choppers going down, so the soldiers jumped out and fly like squirrels in dramatic slow-motions. Then there’s a battle in the highway. Then BOOM! Explosions ensue again. Bridge is destroyed in an unimaginable way. Finally there’s a giant snake-like Decepticon emerging from the ground, attacking all buildings, squeezing them and smashing them all to the ground! The battle between Autobots and Decepticons will be epic! There will be lasers, missiles, bombs, jets, thunders, canons, and..

Producers:  Michael, that’s not ideas, that’s special effects! 

Bay:  There’s a difference?

Producers: …

Writer: Okay, Okay, let me help you guys. I’ve got an idea. For the past two movies we have been dealing with imaginative stories. why don’t we do it a little different this time? Let’s make something that relates with people, with our real world, and then we twist it. Many movies have done it for the past years and they were all quite impressive, right? Tarantino made the jews killed Hitler, and I heard that right now Matthew Vaughn is developing a story about mutants fighting for the cuban missile crisis. Now let’s - Bay, would you pay attention to me for god’s sakes? You’ve been.. - holy Jesus, who’s that? Victoria’s Secret model? Is that who you had in mind for Megan’s place? Man that is..

Producer: Can we continue?!?

Bay: *shocked* *closes the browsing window*

Writer: Okay, sorry. So, as I was saying, why don’t we try to make an alternate version of our history? something that can be connected with the Autobots and Decepticons. Probably something to deal with NASA’s history? Human’s first step on the moon? We can create a conspiracy based on that ground plot.

Producers: Brilliant! Let’s develop that! What do you think, Bay?

Bay: Absolutely! So Cybertron had a war, then BOOM! An aircraft that carries surviving Autobots crashed down to the moon in slow-motion. NASA discovered that aircraft, then it explodes! it burns! BOOM! and then it’s.. - 

You can imagine the rest.

“Can you move to the side a bit, Shia? You’re blocking my explosions..”

Now as fair as i wanted to treat this film in the first place, I still found Michael Bay to be the under-delivering zone. To me, Dark Of The Moon lacks of what made the first Transformersexciting and memorable at the same time. The ground plot was actually pretty good and better than Revenge Of The Fallen, but Bay stretched it in unnecessary ways. It was a little bit too complex for its own sakes then it broke off into more side-plots which, to me, felt like they were being forced into the big picture of what is going on without having a clear conclusion at the end about why the sub-plots were there in the first place. True, same thing happened to an almost-three-hours-long film like Nolan’s The Dark Knight, but unlike Dark Of The Moon, The Dark Knight’s solid writing gave each sub-plots a proper portion and timing with a satisfying wrap-up at the end.

I was clearly able to give my full attention and follow the film, but with more than three things going at the same time - not to mention the blow-ups and the spectacle of Chicago being demolished by these mechanical beings - it’s kinda hard not to have a slight headache when walking out. Sure, Revenge Of The Fallen did fail for its lack of plot, but Michael Bay just tried so hard to squeeze a little too much this time. Eventually it made me feel like I was watching two movies in one (dude, it’s overstuffed for 154 minutes). The retro conspiracy unfolding efforts took about three-quarters of the film, and the actualTransformers’ BOOM-BOOM-CRASH ultimate showdown only took one hour worth of screen time at the end. Indeed they amazed me, but eventually it’s just, “dude, there’s a lot of destruction here and there.. it’s.. it’s just too much..”

“Too much? L-O-S-E-R!”

Well, whatever Bay. Next, the dialogues were pretty dreadful too. If there’s something that I wish Bay has completely got it taken care of are the cheesy humors and the comic-relief characters that seem to be pointless, yet they are all over the place (again). It literally made me groan, ”Come on man, not this kind of humor again. This is exactly what made the last film ugly..”

Case in point, I found John Turturro’s character to be very dispensable. He’s there being that obnoxious ex-agent of Sector Seven living the life for saving the world. But do we really need him? I don’t think so. The movie can still be done without him, yet it won’t change anything. Same thing goes to Sam’s parents. And don’t let me start on John Malkovich.

Another hassle that I found here is that Sam’s character appears to be stagnant and wasn’t developed any further. Whether Bay intentionally establish him to be that way or not, He’s still as verbose as ever and the dude just freaks out all the time (trust me, he really does). I mean, for a person who saved the world twice and earn a medal from POTUS, you’d expect him to be more in control of his panic attacks and pull himself together whilst dealing with these alien robots.

“This is what I got paid for, alright!?? So let me be this way!!”

Oh well, at least Lennox nailed it.

“Damnstraight I did..”

So it seems that under Bay’s command, the writer Ehren Kruger has again drawn onTransformers’ lore for this iteration yet didn’t seem to learn what flawed the last film. But I’m not going to point fingers at that any more, because that seems to be something that the filmmakers inexplicably just can’t get right with this franchise. So be it.

What? Oh yeah, the half-full glass thing. To me Dark Of The Moon still has good things to enjoy outside the visual. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is one of them. Proved positive, the absence of Megan Fox didn’t affect anything to this franchise. There you go. Why, you ask? Well, first of all, she’s a Victoria’s Secret model. Look at her being:

“Hey, my eyes are up here..”

Secondly, frankly i never really bought the romance between Sam and Mikaela over the past two films. I never really felt any chemistry between these two lovebirds. I can only sense that Mikaela wanted to date Sam just because (well duh) he has a  shiny fancy Chevrolet Camaro  that can transform into a ass-kicking robot. While Rosie’s character, on the contrary, has better chemistry with Sam. You can see that she does want to date this guy and she does care about him. I could almost felt what it’s like to be Sam. I think Rosie did a well-done job in playing Sam’s new love interest once we learned that Mikaela dumped Sam years after the last movie. I found the first few scenes that introduce Rosie as Sam’s new sweetheart in Dark Of The Moon to be quite amusing. It almost felt as if Michael Bay was trying to send Megan a message that pretty much meant: “I don’t need you Megan. Rosie is hotter than you.” And to be honest, another thing that I found very interesting is when one of the robots was speaking of Mikaela’s character and called her a bitch.I mean, they could’ve made a fabrication that tells how Mikaela walked out from Sam’s life. Something like death, moving out, or stuff like that. But no, they really made her character seem horrible here. I was actually surprised the film didn’t open with Mikaela’s funeral. Even though I do think that Sam’s emotional relation with any girls he ever dated in his life was never good, (his emotional contact with his trusty Bumblebee is far more moving) Rosie was more than just a replacement. So to take her side again, I do hope to see her opens up for acting career. I think she has a potential. 

I just can’t imagine how good she smells. Die, you, Shia.

Another thing that I realized once I walked out of the theater is that it’s almost logical to say that the humans are dispensable in making Transformers movies. I mean, no flaws came from the robots. You can’t really judge their acting skills because all you see are probably some metal piece around the eye sockets, screws, or stuff like that moving and mimicking a talking face. Yet almost 90% of what made these movies enjoyable are the robots sticking up metals in each other’s ass. Not coming from the human characters. Optimus Prime gets to kick so much ass in this film. Leonard Nimoy voices the Autobot leader’s predecessor, Sentinel Prime, which is all sorts of geek cool.  the exiled Megatron has refashioned himself as a Mad Max-style Mack Titan, while the Autobots’ Wreckers are NASCAR Chevy Impala stock cars tricked out with machine guns. Laserbeak, the Decepticon’s bird-like spy, is in this, and he’s creepy and lizard-like and awesome. And one of the most massive thing is Shockwave. This robo-god has altered my belief that probably when my religion said that at the end of the world, there will be a creature called DAJJAL descending to earth to destroy mankind, what they meant is probably Shockwave (quite an incident, because Shockwave has one eye only).

If this is how Dajjal really is, I promise I will pray shalat 5 times a day from this day onwards.

So my suggestion would be, If Bay were to make the fourth film, enough with the earthlings, let’s just bash the human characters and focus on what Transformers is all about: Autobots and Decepticons. 

So I guess it comes down to this, even if you succeeded on baffling people with how your film looks, without solid writing you’d end up just somewhere in the middle. But still, this is something that everyone can go and see for the summer. I’m not going to call it a popcorn-movie. ‘Pop-corn movie’ is such a negative phrase. It sounds like you hate pop-corn.

Which means you hate corn. Which means you hate America.

So I think it’s better if I just call this a Nachos movie. You know, something that you really enjoy eating but when it has to much melted cheese, it’s kinda hard to distribute the elements especially if you’re in a dark theater and wearing a 3D glasses. Yes, There you go, Dark Of The Moon is a ‘Nachos flick’. 

So go and see this Nachos-flick even if you are not a fan of Bay’s works nor the robots. Even though it had a curb with its middle sequel and didn’t manage to bounce back to its first exclamation point, It has been a blast.. quite literally. You need to see this in the theater, in a 3D, or even in an IMAX. No need to see this feature with angst, It’ll just make itself harder to digest. Just lay back, turn off your phone, and let Bay take you with his own fabrication of fighting robots. So if this is really the curtain call for the Transformers franchise, I gotta say that Dark Of The Moon is not the best, but it’s great at being what it is.

- Adriandhy

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