There is a lot to hate about this dreadful piece of shit movie. Obviously! I mean, by now (film #3) everyone knows Michael Bay’s Transformers series is the worst. “The Worst? That would be Michael Bay’s Transformers series, duh.” “I agree.” – A tiny baby and a dictionary having a conversation. Saying it sucked In almost every way there is is like saying Adolf Hitler was a bad guy, or something: very true and basically unnecessary. We’ve all chosen our spot re: the Transformers line in the sand. We know whether we are the kind of person who is not at all interested in seeing Transformers, or the kind of person who is, and I’m sorry, but if you are the second kind, in most cases you are really dumb, because this movie is the dumbest.
If I had to say one good thing about Transformers: Dark Of The Moon, it is that there are a lot of people in America who are currently out of a job and at least this movie would have employed thousands. It’s great for Shia LaBeouf, who needs to be in an awful action movie at least every eighteen months or he implodes and disappears; it’s great for the employees of General Motors, whose cars are crushed, burned and blown up so many times it’s completely boring; it’s great for the digital effects people in charge of making all of the ridiculous things that happen in this movie look somewhat realistic; and it’s at least a paycheck for the people whose job it is to bathe Michael Bay’s turgid butthole. Transformers gets five stars for being an employer!
In every other way, though, this movie can get fucked. From things as simple as the limp dick Maroon 5 ballads that clutter every spare minute where cars and buildings aren’t being destroyed, to those as complicated as the portrayal of women, Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is never not assuming you are retarded. Not that you should expect much more from a movie co-presented by Hasbro, but still: it’s not polite to assume people are retarded. It’s insulting, actually. Let’s unpack all the ways in which this movie assumes you are retarded:
Bay recycles footage from The Island (2005).
– A major problem at the start of the movie is that Shia LaBeouf is stressed out because he can’t get a job, despite having been given a medal from the president for saving the world. Any good story must have conflict, obviously, but being unemployed? He can’t get a job because his presidential medal is secret because people aren’t supposed to know what he did? Really? I’m not completely familiar with things a president can and can’t do, but I feel certain that he could find this guy a job, or at least write him a letter of recommendation? Or something?
– Shia LaBeouf’s character is called “Sam Witwicky”.
– Optimus Prime is the boss of the Autobots so he is a truck. The others are cars.
– There are only three women in this movie: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who is exclusively a great ass; Frances McDormand, who is a CIA boss who’s a cold bitch and carries her documents around in a “green ostrich skin Hermes Jane Birkin” (LOL WAT); and Shia LaBeouf’s mum, who is an embarrassing middle-aged sexy mum who actually tells her son he’ll never get another girlfriend as hot as Megan Fox or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley unless he has a big dick. AW, MUM!
– There is a bit where Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s creepy boss describes a sports car by saying it has “beautiful curves” and is “sensual”. Meanwhile, the camera pans up HER body, and the cameraman’s boner is visible in the bottom of the shot!
– The Transformers are ridiculous. And very inconsistent!
– Some of the Autobots are full Chicago and say things like “Decepticon punk. Class dismissed!”, but others are Scottish and Arabic, and there is one who (for some reason) can only speak in grabs of dialogue from old human movies?
– The Autobots are a race of noble space robot warriors who believe in liberty for all, except for the bit at the start where they kill a bunch of Palestinians FOR NO REASON. Later, Josh Duhamel says, “these Autobots are like a bunch of teenagers, always trying to sneak out of the house!” What?
– Apparently no one’s ever tipped them off that a tricked-out semi-trailer with no driver is a terrible disguise and is not really worth it if you’re not trying to sell toys.
– They drool. The robots drool!
– Honestly, why are these movies even about Transformers. Here’s my recollection of Transformers from my childhood: some kids at school had the toys. It was a cartoon. Was it about the apocalypse, a massive death toll and some 22-year-old hottie’s ass? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t! Michael Bay: you couldn’t have made a movie about space warrior robots and called it “Space Warrior Robots”?
– All of the Transformers turn into their earth cars ALL THE TIME so we are reminded that they are not just giant building-sized robot space warriors but also cars and trucks at the SAME TIME available from toy stores!
It seems unfair to accuse a movie about space robot warriors of being unrealistic, but that is the other very frustrating thing about Transformers: Dark Of The Moon. There are so many instances of lazy writing and glossed over details that it kind of seems like the script may have just been dot points that the actors had to flesh out on the day? For instance: there is a scene in which Shia LaBeouf has to go tell Josh Duhamel and the Autobots that the Decepticons are back, so they drive to the secret government base and demand to be let in. Clearly, the heavily armed guards refuse, so Shia LaBeouf screams bizarrely and wrestles one of them until he agrees to let them in, and then Shia LaBeouf informs the guard that he will have to fix his car. Standard operating procedure, I’m sure! Later, Frances McDormand, who is a CIA BOSS says that he can’t help them fight, but when he finds out more information he CALLS HER ON HER MOBILE and she literally says, “I told you not to call this number!” OK: A) WHY DID YOU GIVE HIM YOUR MOBILE NUMBER. B) NO YOU DIDN’T TELL HIM THAT.
Finally, this movie fucking sucks for its careless attitude to absolute carnage and hokey patriotism. The Autobots are exiled by the US government. There is an obscene amount of destruction. Every person in Chicago is killed (no shit). Then the Autobots come back and destroy the Decepticons with some very limited assistance from the human soldiers who spend most of their time trying not to be killed. In the final scene, everyone stands in front of a bullet-ridden American flag like it’s fucking Gettysburg or something. Well, it’s not, humans. You suck even worse than the ridiculous space robots who like to disguise themselves as tacky sportscars, but none of you suck as bad as this woeful horseshit film, which by the way sucked up nearly three hours of my time. God damn it.
Max Lavergne is a writer from Sydney. He tweets here, writes about music at Rose Quartz and covers everything else at Really Really Really Trying. He recently started a Masterchef recaps blog called It Lacks Acidity.. He emanates gr8 vibes.
