It must be said that this review is quite delayed as Transformers: Dark of the Moon has been released now for quite a while, however with recent events I just could not find the time to attend a viewing of the movie. Excuses aside I am going to give a review regardless. Let it be said first and foremost that this film is arguably the best film of the trilogy. The amount of action and fantastically produced fight scenes in this film put it above the previous two without a doubt in my mind. More on that point it must also be known that in my opinion, the second film was bad, with the first film being placed above it simply because I recognize that as an introductory film it is limited in certain respects that the sequel and third film are not. Now that I have established my ranking of the three films let us go into the review of the third.
When the film begins we catch up with Sam Witwicki who is now a fresh graduate looking to begin his adult life. I really don’t understand why this portion of the film was dragged out as long as it was, it very much becomes completely irrelevant later in the film and I felt that it could have been much more brief to allow more scenes involving the military organization and their intelligence gathering missions. It just seemed like a good thirty minutes of the film was full of pointless time filling scenes, more so in the beginning, that did not contribute to the overall plot of the film. My friend and I sat in our seats attentively anticipating the next scene only to be bored for longer and longer periods whispering back and forth to one another, “Where is Optimus?” I understand that the writers wanted to highlight more of the human heroes in the film, but I very much think they wasted a lot of time doing so on Sam that could have been used
on other characters. In essence, connections between the opening scenes and the later scenes involving the “life of Sam” can be made but I am sure many would agree it could be trimmed down significantly. When the CGI driven Autobot/Decepticon scenes arrive, for the they are excellent. I can honestly say I was not disappointed with any fight sequence in the film. The camera angles utilized in this film, familiar and new, very much create the feeling that you are alongside the action. My hat is off to the cinematography of the action scenes as it was great to experience on the big screen.
Going back to this film in the overall story of the three films combined. I do not know why the writing was delivered in this way, but I would say that it does not take an exceptional Transformers enthusiast to realize that the continuity between the films has been somewhat tampered with. First contact is not clearly established, originally from the great-grandfather of Sam during his artic expeditions, but in this film they seem to claim first contact was in 1969 during the lunar landing mission. The mortality of the Autobot/Decepticon is a question that will forever remain unanswered for me. In the first two films we see the death and resurrection of both Megatron and Optimus, yet in this film we see that the resurrection of a transformer redefined yet again. Assuming one would take the time to notice the differences between the films you will see what I mean. One point my friend made was how he did not understand how Autobots and Decepticons felt pain considering they were robots. I suppose it brings more humanity to their characters if they are given weaknesses and vulnerabilities however in some scenes we see the transformers being shot repeatedly with no negative impact while in others a vulnerable area is struck and the character becomes completely exposed to their attacker.
I could go into more detailed examples of the inconsistencies between the films, however I don’t wish to spoil the movie for you and in the long run it did not have a significant effect on my final opinion of the film. As said by my friend, the last hour of the film completely validates the arguably terrible initial half of the movie. Hands down, it is pumped full of action and not the cheesy explosion driven fight scenes you would expect from Bay. The explosions are tasteful and the final city battle is a great piece of work. Hopefully rumors of the fourth film being considered are valid and we can expect to see another equally epic final showdown. So to conclude, I will say that the first hour of the film could have been better and the film is dragged down by many scenes that overall were pointless to the plot. Excluding that however, the special effects and cinematography are by far the best of the three films and worth the price of a movie ticket. I hope this review will help you in deciding whether to pay the $10-$14 or wait out on the Blu-Ray. This has been my second Cosmic Movie Review, thanks for reading!
Cosmic Rating: 6/10
- Some useless time filling scenes (roughly 30-45min)
- Great CGI and Cinematography
- The last hour has the best action sequence of the trilogy
- Arguably the best film of the trilogy, look forward to a fourth!
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Hey Joriko just some facts... a.k.a MAJOR SPOILERS ALEART, to all who read this but have yet to see either the original Transformers generation one, the Beast Wars, or the live action movies. Im only trying to show the time line of how the movie plays it, and how it was originaly shown in the shows. In the first movie it is established that the first NBE (Non-Biological Extra-terrestrial) was infact discovered on the Sept 7 1895 but was sent to the now known Hoover Dam in 1934, but only the President and Sector 7 (a section of the U.S. government that is only known by a handful of people started by President J Edger Hoover) knew of it exsistance. Even the following Presidents were not aware of this. Now this brings us to the time line of the space race. It was discovered that something had crashed into the moon in 1961 by NASA, who then proceded to put a couple of men on the moon in 1969's Apollo 11 mission. What would be later revealed as the Autobots flagship known as the "Ark." Now as a Transformers fan, I know and accept that the timeline for the movies was going to be off, but this was no where near the show. As the original "Transformers" and the "Beast Wars" states the Autobots and Decepticons were on earth long before humans had evolved, in search of Energon. Also in the shows specifically the Beast Wars, this is where we see the Autobots' ship the Ark crashed into a dormant volcano on earth rather then earth's moon. When the volcano erupts then the original transformers are reawakened by the eruption and were discovered by the humans. If memory serves me correctly in sometime around 1984. Also we see that it is Optimus Prime in command of the Autobots in the ship, not Sentinel Prime as the movie had Optimus back on Cybertron fighting in the "Great war." That too is a major error as the great war started after the transformers awoke on earth. Also we see at the end of the Beast Wars that the Decpeticons flagship know as "Nemesis" is also discovered crashed on earth. The Ark was taken down when the Decepticons used their tractor beams to lock onto the Ark and then proceded to board the it. Nemesis was taken down along with it where it crashed. We also have proof of this boarding when we see in season three of the Beast Wars when Optimus enters the main area of the Ark and there's Autobots and Decepticons everywhere, most noticible is Megatron and Optimus Prime.
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