Transformers: Age of This-Movie-Should-Be-Extinct (a movie review post)

I have a soft spot in my heart for Transformers. I'm sure I've mentioned that before, so I'm not going to go into it. I like all three of the other Transformers movies. I'm not even going to apologize for it. I like the Transformers.

Also, I like dinosaurs, and I know I've talked about that before. The merging of the two things in 1984ish with the introduction of the Dinobots was, to put it simply, amazing. It was with no small amount of excitement that I received the news of the Dinobots being in Transformers: Age of Extinction. And my 13-year-old, who inherited my love of dinosaur robots, completely geeked out about it. Like, a virtual geek meltdown. We went to the early showing of the movie because my son was so excited about it.

The short review of this movie is that even my 13-year-old walked out of the movie like, "What was that?" He really enjoyed seeing the Dinobots, especially Grimlock, but he, my 13-year-old, had a list of all the stupid things in the movie, so, considering he falls right in line with "target audience," he shouldn't have that kind of list.

To put it simply: This movie is a mess. I haven't seen a movie with a story so all over the place since Robocop 3 (which upset me greatly because it was Frank Miller that had made such a mess of it). There were just too many story lines all trying to happen at once and it would have taken at least two more hours of movie to make sense out of them, and that's saying a lot for a movie that's already bumping the three hour mark. Someone really needed to step in and tell Ehren Kruger, "Stop writing! It's time to edit," which I'm pretty sure they just skipped.

In order to keep this to a somewhat readable length, I'll just talk about a few of the biggest issues in the movie for me. There will be spoilers.

1. Lockdown. Lockdown is the robotic villain of the movie; the problem is not so much with him as it is with the story around him. See, he's not an Autobot or a Decepticon but some kind of Transformer bounty hunter working for "The Creators" who want Optimus Prime back. As it turns out, Optimus is some kind of knight for them who deserted his post at some point in the past. It appears that Optimus remembers being this knight but has no knowledge of these Creators. And, you know, as if Optimus needs some other special thing attached to him. Mostly, though, the story here is too sketchy to follow; there are just too many "Why?"s involved.

2. The movie opens with Optimus near death. Again, why is it we're always dealing with the death or near death of Optimus Prime? [Okay, that's really because, other than Bumble Bee, he is the only Autobot that goes from movie to movie, and we could ask "Why?" about that, too. Personally, I'm annoyed that, basically, every movie, they introduce a whole new collection of Transformers. Where are they coming from?] He's found by Cade Yeager, who thinks he's just a truck he can strip down for parts but discovers he's really a Transformer; at which point, he begins repairing him. They make a huge deal out of the fact that Optimus is in such bad shape and that they have no way to fix him unless they can get him to the other Autobots. He may not make it.

Then they get attacked, and he takes some more beating, and it's a wonder he can still function. Then they find out that Ratchet (the Autobot medic) is dead and Optimus has no good way of getting repaired. I suppose, by that point, they were tired of dealing with the fact that Optimus was barely able to function, because they just have him scan a new big rig and take that form, and, voila!, he's all better! If that's all they need to do to become repaired, why ever bother to do anything else? Just scan a new vehicle. Or store your scan and re-use it. That whole bit was dumb.

3. The banter. The characters have a continual flow of inappropriate conversations during combat situations. Part of the problem is that "Cade Yeager" is written just as if he's Sam Witwicky, and Wahlberg, as much as I like him, couldn't pull it off. None of the characters could, as the stream of mouth diarrhea flows from one character to the next, none of them believable in any way close to Shia LaBeouf (do you see the irony in that statement?).

4. The Dinobots. As my son said, there is no build up to them. They are a complete Deus ex machina. They're just prisoners in Lockdown's giant spaceship. At the point when the Autobots are going to be overwhelmed, Optimus releases them and threatens to kill Grimlock if they don't defend the Autobots. Hmm, yeah, that fits right in with the character of Optimus Prime. So the Dinobots destroy the Decepticons then go on their way. They also never speak, which was more than a little disappointing.

5. Everything to do with Lockdown's spaceship. The Autobots allow the humans to go off on their own. Dumb. There are booby traps. Dumb. Lockdown knows almost as soon as they've trespassed that he has unwanted guests, but he doesn't have a clue when Optimus disengages part of the ship. Dumb. Yes, I could go on.

6. Optimus Prime. This was a very unOptimus Optimus. He was angry, and I lost count of the number of times he said, "I'm going to kill you!" to people, robots, whoever. In fact, he's so full of anger and hate through most of the movie that it's actually out-of-character for him to stay and help the humans at the end of the movie. It was rather like, "Well, we're already here, so we may as well." Plus, he blasts off into space with his magically appearing boot jets at the very end. What the heck?

And, actually, I could just go on and on about the stupid in the movie, but there's not a lot of point in doing that. I'm sure you get the idea. So I was trying to think of any good points about it, but I'm not really thinking of any. Well, I did enjoy Stanley Tucci (he's difficult not to like), but he has the same problem all the characters have with random-seeming statements at inappropriate times which made his inevitability shaky at best. Still, he was better than most of the characters. Kelsey Grammer played a pretty good villain as the part was written, but it was hard to buy into the character. I mean, the President sends word that he wants to see him and his response is something along the lines of, "I don't have time for him." That doesn't make the character a badass; it makes him unbelievable. That's not what you say to your boss.

Um... some of the Transformers were pretty cool looking, like Drift and Crosshairs. Even Lockdown. That was offset by how ridiculous Hound was in robot form, though, so even that was a mixed bag.

Basically, unless you're just a die-hard Transformers fan, you should probably just skip this one. Even if you are a die-hard Transformers fan, you might want to skip this one.

Nostalgia vs the Transformers (pt 2): Dark of the Moon

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a spectacular movie. I mean that literally. It is full of spectacle. And it's more than worth the price of the 3D admission because of it. Say what you want about Michael Bay and his talent (or lack thereof), but he knows how to make a visually stunning movie. And, you know, I think there might not be anything wrong with that. Let me give you an example:

1998 saw the release of two movies in which Earth would face destruction: Deep Impact and Armageddon. Deep Impact focuses on relationships in the face of tragedy. Armageddon is directed by Bay. My preference, by far, is Deep Impact. It has more story (and scientific accuracy). Wait, let me rephrase that. The story of Impact is about the people, the relationships, and what they do when faced with a catastrophic event. The impending catastrophe could have been anything, really; it's just that it happens to be a comet. Armageddon is about the catastrophe itself, dealing with the thing that is the catastrophic event. It's full of spectacle. One is a drama, one is an action movie. I've known more than a few people who cited Armageddon as their favorite movie ever at one time or another, and the film grossed more than half a billion dollars, 200 million more than Impact. People, for good or ill, like spectacle.

These two movies took the same story (literally, since Disney copied the story of Impact and initiated Armageddon as a counter film), but Bay was able to realize the story's potential for dazzlement, drama (not in  the sense of being a drama but of capitalizing on the drama of the event), and sheer Wowness and make the higher grossing film. I'm not saying he made a better film, certainly not a better story, but he made the more appealing one. There is talent in that. Probably a lot of talent.

At any rate, Dark of the Moon, like Revenge of the Fallen, has taken a critical bashing. However, it has grossed more internationally than Transformers 2 (it already has the highest gross of the the three Transformers movies and isn't finished, yet) and may pass it domestically, also. All of that to say, despite what is probably a weak story, people like it. And the critics hate, and I do mean hate, Bay for it.

Here's the thing, my wife and I are extremely hard on sci-fi shows. We routinely scoff at them and make fun of them. Even shows we like. Like Stargate. We watched a whole season of Warehouse 13, groaning and making fun of it the whole time. I watch Eureka with my kids while rolling my eyes at the ridiculous plots and bad science. And don't even get me started on Star Trek (I have just two words: red matter). And yet... and yet... I give Transformers a pass on all of this. Why? Because I loved it as a kid. There it is: nostalgia at work. I don't care if it has bad science.

The story for Dark of the Moon, when looked at objectively, is... I don't even have words for it. The idea of transporting a planet across the galaxy through a man made, well, robot made wormhole... Let's just say it more than stretches the fabric of science. Or even science fiction. But you know what? That was the plot for one of the early story arcs in  the cartoon back before I bothered to question that sort of thing, so my reaction is more "wow! I remember that!" rather than "wow! That's so stupid!" And I can't help it. Oh, and the thing with the Autobots going up in  the rocket and faking their deaths... that's from the cartoon, too.

All of that to say that the critics can bash the movie all they want, it's not going to change anything. They should have spent more time watching Transformers when they were kids. Or something. Maybe they need lessons in the suspension of disbelief. I guess what I'm saying is this:
I'm not a bandwagon kind of guy. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I'm cynical (just ask my wife). I'm critical (my wife would say overly critical). I'm suspicious, especially of things that are popular. However, I'm also not going to bash something or forsake it merely for being popular. [I have a cousin who did that with U2 back when The Joshua Tree came out. Although he had loved them prior to that, because they were suddenly the popular band, he decided he couldn't like them anymore. Because other people did.] Mostly, I just make my own decisions about what I like, and I'm not going to allow what other people think about it influence me one way or the other.

So, yeah, I had a lot of fun with Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

However...

Say what you will about Megan Fox, Bay shouldn't have dumped her. Or, at least, if he really  had to dump her, he should have found a better replacement. It's not like Megan set the bar very high. Yeah, she's attractive, but attractive actresses in Hollywood are a dime a dozen. Shake a tree, and they'll fall out on your head. What I'm saying is if all he wanted was attractive or hot or whatever, he could have done a better job, because the new girl is not Megan Fox. And! And! Here's the real issue: the new girl makes Megan look like Meryl Streep in the acting department. That's saying something... I'm not sure what, exactly, it's saying, but it is. Not Megan Fox was easily the worst part of the movie.

Megatron looked cool in a tattered cloak. Yeah, a giant robot wearing a tattered cloak is kind of dumb, but it looked cool!

I liked Patrick Dempsey. I thought he did a great job in that role.

And, of course, Shia. I think he's a good actor; I just wish he didn't think so highly of himself. But this is about the movie, not about him as a person.

I love John Turturro and how he brings off the crazy, conspiracy theory persona.

Oh, and John Malkovich, whom I always want to like but often can't, was great.

I suppose, in the end, what I can say is this: If you like the Transformers, there's a good chance you'll like this movie. Especially, if they are something out of your childhood. If you like lots of action and don't really care about whether the story makes any sense, you should like this movie. However, if Transformers mean nothing to you and story is the most important element of your movie-going experience, you'll probably want to stay away.

And just to add as a disclaimer:
I'm not a Bay fan, no matter how this sounds. I didn't care for Armageddon. The Island sucked. I've never been a fan of Bad Boys even though I really like Will Smith (he just wasn't enough to make those movies work for me). However, I do think he has a certain amount of talent. Or a certain kind of talent. Certainly a talent for making big, blockbuster movies. And I could tell you stories, weird stories, about him from being at Skywalker Ranch, but I'm not going to go there, right now. I do like what he's done with the Transformers, though. I'm already looking forward to the next one.