I went and watched the final installment in the Transformers trilogy, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (DOTM) on Wednesday (29/06), the day it came out, but not the midnight session, I wasn't THAT crazy yet. Anyway, while I was watching it and for the rest of that day I was appalled at the film, but now that I've calmed down a bit in these past two days, I feel it is safe that I can write up my thoughts about it (and not completely trash the whole film like I was doing on Wednesday).
First up, as everyone seems to want to say this, is it better than Revenge of the Fallen (ROTF)? Honestly, in my opinion, I don't know, I'm on a toss up between whether ROTF or DOTM is better, on the one day, the action sequences made the boring-ness and idiocy of ROTF bearable and worth it, while DOTM offers a better more story line (it is still no masterpiece and extremely simplistic, but at least it has a coherent plot). I found that that action sequences in DOTM were pretty boring and didn't blow me away likes the ones in the first movie and ROTF did, maybe it was because of the weird editing and slotting in boring scenes between them, maybe Michael Bay ran out of good ideas, nevertheless, the action sequences just didn't do it for me this time, and once that doesn't live up to my expectations, there's nothing else going for DOTM.
Now, if you haven't seen the movie yet, do not read on unless you want to know what happens, coz it is full of spoilers...
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I'll do it in the classic "pros vs cons" format just so it's easier to read but be warned, the cons far outweigh the pros which means that it will be quite a lengthy section.
PROS:
- The best thing about this movie would be the plot twist of Sentinel Prime's betrayal. But that's not all, the major thing was that during his betrayal, he actually killed Ironhide, I totally didn't see that one coming, and kudos to the writer for that. The way it was done was excellent.
- I loved how much time they spent on Sentinel Prime, and I thought he was a great character, too bad it was at the expensive of a lot of other robots though.
- The deaths, wow, I did not expect Autobots to die (as ROTF didn't have any that died), and we had the deaths of quite a few, but it was nothing compared to how many Decepticons died (so much cannon fodder it's unrealistic, that just implies that Decepticons aren't as competent fighters as the Autobots which is rubbish). The deaths were also a lot more brutal and cold-hearted.
- I loved Soundwave for some reason, from his design to his role, it was pretty good and likable.
- A lot of the robots had awesome designs, too bad we never really got to see them properly or long enough to appreciate it.
- They tied up a few loose ends including Barricade reappearing (even though he was going to get killed minutes after).
CONS:
Man, I am going to complain the hell out of this movie right now.
- By far my biggest gripe, and the thing that ruined most of the movie for me, Starscream's death. It wasn't so much that he dies but how he dies, he gets killed by two humans, but it was primarily only one. Now, let me get this clear, I have nothing against humans killing Transformers, but Starscream died in the hands of ONE puny weak human (even if he had some Cybertronian weapons, it is still no excuse). I thought this death scene was pathetic, absolutely pathetic, this character, who had such a large role in the first movie and ROTF, reduced to this piece of rubbish. He is supposed to be fairly powerful too and he gets killed by one human, that is demeaning the character so much, even Shockwave, who did NOTHING, gets the honour of being killed Optimus Prime. This is just a mess, and easily the killer for me in this movie.
- Next, where the hell was Megatron all this time?!! I reckon he only had like five mins of screen time and that was it, and most of that time was him looking all suspicious in that stupid poncho of his. WTF. WHY would a giant robot even WEAR a poncho?!?!?! I mean, it was great that Sentinel Prime got a lot of screen time, but Megatron was just a petty side character who arrived right at the end of the battle and gets killed in two seconds by Optimus... epic fail.
- The whole alien invasion concept, come on, most of the scenes felt so cliche, and overdone already. I didn't feel that the spaceships were very 'transformer-y', more like alien spaceships from another generic alien movie, pathetic and lame.
- The lameness of a lot of concepts, Shockwave's worm thing (Driller) was lame, the building being destroyed in half was lame, the Stealth Force modes were lame (bad transition to the big screen) and Sam's inability to die was lame (he should have died at least a dozen times already with most of the situations he's been in, especially the scene where the space orbital carrier crashes with him outside standing on top and the carrier explodes).
- I didn't want to get into this but it is something I cannot ignore, the impossibility of so many situations, they defy physics so much. Main one is being Cybertron being so close to the Earth (it filled the whole sky, either it's very close or it's very big, both of which has the same result), the additional gravitational force would have RIPPED Earth apart, and the planet disappearing after the pillars are destroyed... how convenient, no explanations whatsoever.
- Hard to understand and follow some scenes, and a lot of unnecessary filler, although a lot of the dialogue was good.
- The climax was disappointing, it was too long (nearly half the movie), and the actions and battles in it were disappointing and felt lacking (Sam was either falling or sliding most of the time).
- Why did the Decepticons have to spit stuff out when they're speaking?! That's just disgusting and unnecessary, I also noticed 'red stuff' gushing out when robots were sliced, that's a bit too humanized...
- We didn't get to see Optimus getting 'suited' with his jetwing pack, he just appeared, and I was looking forward to a scene where that would happen, it would have been awesome... (just like the combination with Jetfire in ROTF).
- The plot was taken from a couple of episodes from the G1 cartoon, while with a kids cartoon it is understandable with a simple plot, but it is NO excuse for a big budget film to not only have a simple plot but PLAGIARIZE so blatantly (well, I guess for those had seen the original cartoon at least).
- Robot screen time sucked, most of the time they didn't do much, disappointing. They had added so many new robots and it was hard to keep track of (something ROTF also suffered), I didn't even catch the name of a few.
- Too much time was spent building up to the climax, such that the first hour felt really boring for me.
- The ending was so abrupt, it's like right after the battle ended, the movie ended, when the screen came up I was like "huh, it's really finished?", talk about a bad ending...
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Overall, as a fan, and a movie goer, I would recommend at least watching DOTM once, but do NOT hold any sort of expectations whatsoever, coz they're only going to be trashed. It's an okay movie, but this was the only one where I left the cinema disappointed, this didn't happen with the first movie or ROTF, so take that what you will. If I had to give a rating, it would probably get a 5/10 (ROTF 5/10 and the first movie 9/10).