The logic of Michael Bay’s twisted universe gets even weirder in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” The characters become loonier, the motivations of the heroes and villains are nonsensical, the destruction is purposeless, and come on: Shia LaBeouf’s girlfriend is way too hot for him.
Bay’s universe mirrors our own in every possible way, except for one major detail: Although humans share Earth with giant autobots, this reality doesn’t seem to faze anyone. The autobots sound like humans, they act like humans, and they care about humans, possibly more than their own kind.
Initially, Bay’s attempt at rewriting history by insinuating that the 1969 moon landing was really an attempt to investigate a Cybertron spaceship crash-landing on the dark side of the moon is kind of cute, but then you realize that a majority of the details have been mystically arranged to serve the function of making a stupid Pink Floyd joke. Jerry Wang (get it?), played creepily by The Hangover’s Ken Jeong, makes this clear when he says, “We’re code pink. As in Floyd. As in dark side.”
The wacky ensemble is completed with John Malkovich as a corporate goon, a sinister John Turturro, and Frances McDormand as the Secretary of Defense, who insists she’s not a “ma’am” — whatever that means.
Bay’s attempts to make up for “Revenge of the Fallen” pay off in the 3D department, because the visual effects are pretty stunning, and the added depth of field is appropriate for this kind of live action. But the randomness and purposelessness of the film’s characters and events are overwhelming, and even a little depressing at times. If superhero LaBeouf can’t get a job after college, there really isn’t much hope for the rest of us.
This movie is really, really bad. But there are some seriously awesome, slow-motion action sequences, and enough robot face-offs to entertain even the most skeptical young adult. Ultimately, though Bay has a few moments of inspiration, he seems to be channeling Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” — lots of flying paper, crashes out of windows and falls across long distances — or maybe it was just the music playing tricks on me.
My favorite part of the movie, though, was Megan Fox’s replacement, zombie-runway model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (don’t judge). Her acting is nonexistent, and she looks like she’s posing for a photo shoot the entire time.
Coincidentally, this makes her perfect for a Michael Bay film.
If you’re going to see “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” I trust you know what you’re getting yourself into. Either you’ve seen the first two, or you’ve heard of the infamous director’s shenanigans. Brace yourself. If you like an exhaustive amount of explosions and gigantic, awesome robots, this movie is for you.
The verdict: A really, really bad — but visually resplendent — migraine of
a movie.
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