Dear Michael Bay: Bigger is not always better...but thank you for scaling back on the robo-action, if a tad, and upping the ante for the human race: it gives Transformers: Dark of the Moon a heartbeat.
Yeah, I said it – this one has rea...well, realer stakes for Shia LaBeouf & Co., and that makes it the better entry in the franchise, but with a running time of 157 minutes, though, this one asks a whole of a lot of its audience, much more than the 2007 original and even more than the 2009 sequel.
Seriously?
Very much so.
Not to worry, though – we’re still dealt numerous boom situations and sexiness. And, like I said, it all works (especially because part deux a couple of years ago kinda didn’t).
LaBeouf reprises his role as Sam, the Autobots’ main ally on Earth. Megan Fox is out as his first gf, Mikaela, due to her controversial off-camera remarks (conveniently rehashed last week) about Bay’s ways on set, replaced with the Cameron Diaz-esque Victoria’s Secret model-turned-actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Carly, the blockbuster’s resident PYT.
This time around the movie (written by Ehren Kruger, the scribe of Scream 3 and the previous Transformers offering) takes a page from the X-Men: First Class playbook and revisits a major event of our history (the lunar landing) and sprinkles a healthy dose of fantastic conspiracy to serve the needs of the plot.
And what, you ask, are those requirements?
Well, first, that the race between the United States and the old U.S.S.R. to reach the moon was driven by a desire to retrieve whatever had crashed there before the Apollo 11 ever landed on its surface. What’s that? Something Cybertronian, of course...maybe good, maybe bad.
Second, that that decades-old secret get out, and that when it surely does it is up to Sam, Optimus Prime, and the rest of the gang to save us and the planet once again, which Sam is happy to since he’s having a tough time landing a job after a college (that he has like, a medal from the POTUS himself doesn’t seem to impress a lot of people).
What’s so different about Transformers: Dark of the Moon is that it’s simplified. In its own way, natch.
Bay and his team have taken a step back, recognizing their penchant for excess, and made the story about not just Autobots vs. Decepticons (oh yeah...those robo-evildoers are still lurking around), but about humans fighting for their world. The director and Kruger have added an ever-effective double-cross device, as well as betrayal, intrigue, and jealousy into the mix. (Kudos for assembling a strong supporting cast, including Frances McDormand as a top CIA operative, John Malkovich as Sam’s oh-so eccentric employer, and Patrick Dempsey as a duplicitous businessman.)
Combined, and on the surface, these ingredients come together nicely...but don’t think too much about the details or you’ll see the kinks in the armor. Shocker.
Sure, the slow-down in the action pieces makes the whole thing a little, say, draggy – you know that when it takes an unknown actor in a beyond-minor role to arrive on screen in the third act to jolt you back to attention it is time to blow something up (hello, Josh Kelly!) – but it gives LaBeouf ample opportunity to remind us of what and who is on the line.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is, for all intents and purposes, a culmination, and while it goes it with plenty a bang of the CGI variety, it also packs a wallop that may not tug at your heart strings (I blame the too-convoluted mythology storytelling created for the screen), it, at the very least, scrapes by ’em in a way that ought to let producer Steven Spielberg save face as he and Bay and everyone else involved laugh their way to the bank.
My Rating ***
Photo: DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures.
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