Review

Review Date: 1-July-11
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Heading into this summer it was clear that the contenders for biggest box office were the third Transformers movie and the eighth Harry Potter movie. Even though I won't watch the Potter films (my own mental imagery from the books being too cherished), I hope the boy wizard wins. His picture is likely to entail a degree of drama and class, whereas Transformers: Dark of the Moon is artistically embarrassing. This is not a surprise. Michael Bay's toy story franchise has never threatened to unseat Shakespeare, and the third installment is much like the first two. It features Shia LaBeouf as a struggling Everyman whose friendship with alien robots puts him in the thick of Earth-threatening action. The U.S. government (here represented by Frances McDormand) is on hand to provide bluster, and the U.S. military (again led by Josh Duhamel) drops in for July 4th flag-waving and camoed machismo. For comedy and dime-store sentiment there's a hash of tacky parents, wisecracking mini-bots, token non-whites, John Malkovich impersonating John Malkovich, Patrick Dempsey giving a clinic on bad acting, John Turturro stealing scenes like last time, and the requisite T-n-A unit with hideous fake lips. (Can her real name actually be Rosie Huntington-Whiteley? Egads.) Horrid editing contributes to the confusion, suggesting that Bay and his colleagues think continuity is for pussies.

But to return to the Shakespeare contrast: the primary draw of a Transformers movie ain't the characters or the wit, nor even the cars or Botox babe. It's the special effects, and in this respect Dark of the Moon is truly special. The first two-thirds of the flick are regrettably light on dazzle, but the last third contains sights that might rival the Battle of Hogwarts for sheer wow-power. The showdown between the Autobots (rah) and Decepticons (hiss) takes place in Chicago, where a glowy gizmo of evil has been installed in the gorgeous old Jewelers Building. Images of the city's skyscrapers in various states of destruction are flawlessly rendered with the aliens' massive yet wonderfully fluid bodies. Even the Decepticon who shreds buildings with razor-sharp tentacles has a certain beauty in motion. The Transformers and the carnage they wreak look so real and amazing one can't help but get a retinal-driven buzz.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.