transformers

On Sunday night I enjoyed one of the perks of my job and was witness to a film prior to official release. The film in this instance was Transformers: The Dark of the Moon. It was not an experience I wish to repeat with out good reason. There are many numerous reasons behind this.

However let us start with the positives. And though there are many negatives it must be said that there are good points to almost every film including this one. First of all, to the many who will cry out against the decision for him I actually think that Michael Bay was probably the right choice for this and the previous transformers films. He is a modern director comfortable with the use of CGI and with great knowledge in the area and evidently a fan of the action/ adventure style film. To look at this area the CGI is very good and far better than other films currently out even if some of the Decepticon spaceships were stolen from Battlefield: L.A. and the action sequences well done. To go into one specifically I was extremely pleased to see that Optimus Prime was on form and generally kicking ass, especially the one armed axe wielding. Other good things included were Leonard Nemoy’s voice as well as some generally hot vehicles. This is where the good stops.

The bad is beyond bad, the plot has holes in it bigger than a well used hookers. Not to mention being severely over complicated having little continuity with the other films and having a time line that is royally confusing. Add on the fact that the Autobots are apparently the human’s bitches and the annoyingly large air time dedicated to human relationships. There also issues with any fans of the original series with Laserbeak being able to talk. On top of this they have replaced Megan Fox (not necessarily a bad thing) with another actress who can’t act and isn’t even decent eye candy. The beginning is extremely bad, with over use of old footage of the moon landings and terrible actors used to supposedly look like presidents JFK and Nixon made to look even worse next to footage of the real ones. Upon this the film tries to save itself with humour, now there is precedent for humour in action films and often can improve a film, but not in this film, not only because some humour just isn’t funny and more because it is overly used. There were a lot of things wrong with this film that I would happily go into but it would take a lot of time I do not feel like dedicating to it.

However there is one complaint I really feel the need of stressing and it is an all encompassing complaint of all three films. This is not the obvious complaint, yes I am a big fan of the original, but they were always going to change things and I completely understand the reasoning behind making new live action films especially with the technology we can utilise. The issue is this: with all the technology how is it that you take a subject matter of two warring groups of giant transforming robots and making it so bad? Why do you make humans the focus? Why is there so little action? Why are we not focusing on a planet where the only limitation to its scenery is the limitations of what a robotic planet could be? Just why?