Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

First proper post alert! And there was much rejoicing!

Okay now that that's over with... The first film I'm going to be looking at is Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, the third instalment of the Michael Bay directed franchise. And we're all still scared of any film with his name attached to it, aren't we? Yes, he did recreate Pearl Harbour in a manner so horrifically disastrous that the very release of the film can be considered somewhat of a microcosm of the event itself, and yes he may have actually attempted to direct a Vanilla Ice video (seriously), but I believe we're all a little guilty of criticising his massive...massive reliance on special effects and BIG SHINY THINGS. As an avid fan of most things horror - be they scary and great, or laughably terrible (and therefore still great), he has resurrected a few staples of the genre and updated them, some much better than others, but I for one genuinely enjoyed his production of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre a whole lot more than I did with the original, and his reboot of Friday The 13th was also a nice way of dragging Jason back from the ludicrous escapades he got up to in space and scuffling with Freddy, the cheeky scamp. I'm not saying he's a good story teller, so don't get me wrong, I mean, the man hasn't really come up with an original idea in, well, ever, really. But he certainly knows how to entertain, even if you do feel slightly ashamed at just how preoccupied you are by the aforementioned big shiny things. Which leads us nicely to Dark Of The Moon.

A bit of a fuss was kicked up about just how this second sequel was going to turn out, given the utter dross that was Revenge Of The Fallen, and the finest lampost actress the world has ever seen departing the cast as Megan Fox was replaced by debuting model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, the world of critics and punters alike awaited with baited breath to see what ridiculous plot Bay would throw at them next. I believe that world of critics and punters will have greeted it by making this face.

Fans of the franchise can finally be happy; the comedy side of the story has been removed from the main Autobots and relegated largely to the human characters, and the minor robot members of the cast, so yes, Bumblebee is allowed to just be fairly amazing and less like your uncle at a family birthday. More importantly, the comedy becomes mainly centred on John Turturro, which is no bad thing given that he can actually pull it off.

Now the story itself is a little more sophisticated than the previous offering, and is actually verging on decent: Decepticons hatch devious plan - Humans and Autobots try to thwart plan - Interesting twist about said plan - Autobots must save the day. Sorted. Just what people actually want, because that could have been an episode on the original show.

Yes, there are some annoying inclusions which drag it down somewhat though, such as 90% of Huntington-Whiteley's screen time being dedicated to her various lady-regions for no reason other than LOOK AT HER! Also, the bizarrely racial stereotypes of the Wreckers accents remains - comic relief in the form of Italian, Scottish and Spanish accents mean that somehow we've entered a world of ethnic robot tokenism. And there's a particularly physically infuriating scene involving being able to run up a 45degree angled skyscraper, being able to smash through a window at the top of that incline and then slide down the outside to safety which really boggles my sense of logic. BUT, at the risk of giving Bay his usual back-up plaudits, the SFX in this film are staggeringly brilliant. Be truthful, one of the main reasons why people who weren't avid fans of the original series are going to see this film is because of the transforming sequences, and they are by far worth the price of the ticket.

Then there's Optimus Prime. I don't know how, given that he has a criminally short amount of screen time given to him, but he's rapidly become one of my favourite heroes of the big screen, I poop you not, I actually had goosebumps every time he transformed. He's probably the second best actor in the film too, and he's not beaten by Huntington-Whiteley, I'm sorry to say.

Overall, the script is a bit shaky, and a few of the cast could really do with a bit more shoving in the right direction, but the plot is actually pretty good, and, of course, the visuals are fantastic. It's not a half bad film, and at the very least saved us from the memory of the first sequel, which is nothing short of cause for celebration.

So it's at this point that I'll probably start giving things ratings, so let's say an 'out of five' scale here...

3/5  - Decent plot and great action scenes, just a shame about some of the acting.

P.S. Leonard Nimoy is in it. So it should get bonus points.