‘TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

The Moon and Sentinel Prime

This was where I gave up on the ‘Transformers’ film series by Michael Bay. 😀

You’ve probably gained the impression that I like to be a fair-minded person. I’d like to give things a fair chance, even if they don’t seem to impress me on a first go. The case certainly seems to apply to movies and TV shows. I was willing to give up on ‘Doctor Who’ before Jodie Whittaker came along. 🙂

I was willing to give up on the ‘MCU Spider-Man’ films before ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ happened. The same came be said for the ‘Transformers’ film series, as the 2018 film ‘Bumblebee’ has reignited my interest in the films, although we’ll have to see how ‘Rise of the Beasts’ turns out. 🙂

In 2011, there was a time where I felt that the ‘Transformers’ film series had gone as far as it could. I honestly thought that ‘Dark of the Moon’, the third instalment in the ‘Transformers’ film series by director Michael Bay, was going to be the last one in the film series. How totally wrong I was on that.

For whatever reason, ‘Dark of the Moon’ was a hit at the box office despite receiving mixed reviews at the time. This is why ‘Age of Extinction’ and ‘The Last Knight’, the next two films in the series, were made. I’ll delve more into what I think about the next two ‘Transformers’ films another time.

Suffice to say, ‘Dark of the Moon’ was my last experience of seeing a ‘Transformers’ film by Michael Bay at the cinema. I made the conscious decision not to see any more Michael Bay ‘Transformers’ films after that. I’m glad I made that decision, since I felt the films were becoming underwhelming. 😦

I tried! I honestly tried giving these movies a fair chance. I hoped for more variety with these ‘Transformers’ films and for the storylines and characters to improve. But that didn’t seem to be the case with Michael Bay at the helm, as he kept repeating what he did from the first film of the series.

Arguably, ‘Dark of the Moon’ is better than ‘Revenge of the Fallen’, but that’s not saying much. On revisiting this film lately on DVD in 2022, I came away feeling pretty drained and uninspired. This is something the ‘Transformers’ films shouldn’t do, as they should be getting better as time goes on. 😦

I hope to elaborate why that’s the case, as I explain my thoughts and feelings about ‘Dark of the Moon’ as a whole. Hopefully they’ll enlighten you as to why I gave up on the ‘Transformers’ film series by this point, before I delve into what I missed in not seeing the next two films at the cinema.

‘Dark of the Moon’ takes place two years after the events of ‘Revenge of the Fallen’. Before that, we’re given a prologue where a Cybertronian spacecraft called the Ark crash-landed on the dark side of Earth’s moon. Soon, the crew of Apollo 11 lands on the Moon and they investigate the crash spaceship. 😐

Just on a side note, the Ark was the name of the Autobot ship that crash-landed on Earth in the 1980s cartoon show during the three-part opening story ‘More Than Meets The Eye’. Honestly, I wish ‘More Than Meets The Eye’ was adapted into a live action film instead of the 2007 film we got.

Something I neglected to mention in my ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ review is that Michael Bay likes to use the concept of Transformers being on Earth many years ago before we knew about it. It’s clearly used in the second, third, fourth and fifth films of this series and it’s very frustrating it gets repeated.

Mind you, I like how it’s handled here in this particular movie. For you see, the Ark crash-landed on Earth’s moon in 1961. It wasn’t until 1969 that the astronauts of Apollo 11 discovered the Ark and found Sentinel Prime inside and asleep. Honestly, I like how history and fantasy mixes in this regard.

The notion that NASA wanted to find out what was on the Moon and that it was a secret mission when Apollo 11 went to the Moon to find that out is pretty fascinating. Little did anyone else know that the Silence were manipulating humanity back then in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’/’Day of the Moon’. 😀

And yes, it seems to be a coincidence that the ‘Doctor Who’ story ‘The Impossible Astronaut’/’Day of the Moon’ and ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ were released in the same year and they involved Apollo 11. Although, I would argue that ‘Doctor Who’ did it first and a lot better than ‘Transformers’.

And if you think I’m being too harsh on that score, I’d like to point out that the Moon business in the 1960s with the Transformers never happens again. Oh sure, there are touches of it with retrieving Sentinel Prime from the Moon and Buzz Aldrin making a cameo appearance in the film, which is nice.

But the whole business of the Moon and the Apollo 11 landing is mostly forgotten about for the rest of ‘Dark of the Moon’, as we have to contend with Sam Witwicky and his story throughout the film. Also, the humans angle in this ‘Transformers’ film gets more attention than the Transformers again!

I know that’s to be expected in these ‘Transformers’ movies, but… come on! Instead of the climactic battle happening in the city of Chicago, you could’ve had the climactic battle taking place on the moon! That would’ve been way more impressive compared to the actual final battle we ended up having.

I know, I know. I sound harsh in my criticisms when it concerns the final battles of these movies, as I should be impressed by them. And yes, the visual effects for the climactic battle scenes are impressive for the most part. But like ‘Revenge of the Fallen’, I couldn’t help feel bored by this film!

The final battle scene just goes on and on AND ON!!!!! I don’t care about what’s happening to the characters, since most of them haven’t been well-developed throughout the film, and as argued by many others, the action sequences are hard to make out with the angles Michael Bay’s shooting them. 😦

I don’t want to come away feeling like I’ve been knocked around in the head with so many explosions going on and too many cuts in shots for the action scenes. I want to feel like the heroes have won the day and the villains are defeated. Also, I want to feel like I at least like our heroes in this.

Maybe this is how war is depicted with so much strategic action going on and a lot of coordination happening between army characters and such. But it’s not my kind of action film and I don’t want to see a war film where the human soldiers get more attention compared to the Transformer characters. 😦

Anyway, that’s enough ranting for a bit. Let’s talk about the characters. Firstly, the human characters. There’s Shia LaBeouf back as Sam Witwicky. As it turned out, this is Shia LaBeouf’s last appearance in the ‘Transformers’ film series. And it’s probably for the best that this was his last film.

From what I’ve heard and read, Shia LaBeourf ended up going on a dark path, particularly with being arrested on certain criminal charges such as disorderly conduct, obstruction, sexual battery, etc. Knowing that aspect about him hurts and it’s a shame the ‘Transformers’ films didn’t help his image.

The performance he gives in ‘Dark of the Moon’ is decent enough. Although I would argue there’s not much to say in terms of how he’s developed as a character since the first film. He’s more or less the same as he was since he began, sometimes being a jerk and sometimes being a ‘screamy’ cat. 😀

And that’s not exaggerating by the way. There are times when he screams his head off like a girl when in the middle of a terrifying moment with the Transformers. Honestly, you’d think he’d be over that stage in his life. I mean, he isn’t a high school kid anymore. He’s a blinking college graduate, right? 😐

Speaking of which, we see him going for a new job after he graduated from college. Again, like in the second film where his college life wasn’t explored enough with much attention; Sam’s jobbing time at Accuretta Systems is quite short-lived, especially when the Transformers are taking over his life again.

We also meet Sam’s new girlfriend: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Carly Spencer. (sighs) Okay, I need to go into a little background here. You see, in-between the release of ‘Revenge of the Fallen’ and the making of ‘Dark of the Moon’, Megan Fox, who played Mikaela in the first two ‘Transformers’ films, got fired. 😦

She wasn’t invited to play Mikaela again for the third ‘Transformers’ film. The reason for this was she openly stated some things regarding Michael Bay and his work ethics. Specifically, she compared him to Adolf Hitler. Wow! Megan Fox must have had some guts to come out and say something like that. 😀

Now on the one hand, I sympathise with how Megan Fox felt about working with Michael Bay as a director. It can’t have been easy and I can only imagine what the working atmosphere was like when working under immense pressure, especially when Michael Bay utilised the military in certain scenes.

With that said; the things she said in comparing Michael Bay to Adolf Hitler does come across as being a bit unprofessional. I wouldn’t have openly said things like that if I didn’t feel happy about being in a working situation with a difficult manager. Perhaps Megan Fox should’ve held back from saying those things.

I know she did movies after working on the ‘Transformers’ films, but it can’t have been easy. I’m surprised she appeared in the two ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ films produced by Michael Bay afterwards. Mind you, they were directed by other people, so I guess it makes sense she’s in them. 🙂

It’s such a shame though that Megan Fox’s time in the ‘Transformers’ film series was curtailed like that. I would’ve liked to have seen how her journey as Mikaela progressed by the third film. There’s certainly an impression of that whilst watching what Carly’s doing when she’s Sam’s new girlfriend. 🙂

Speaking of which, Carly’s character is based on the Carly that appeared in the 1980s ‘Transformers’ cartoon series, who married Spike (the Sam Witwicky equivalent in the ‘Transformers’ cartoon) and they had a son named Daniel. Mind you, her surname was Anderson in the cartoon, not Spencer. 😐

She’s also British or English… for some reason. The actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is also a model in real-life. Whilst I’m sure her modelling career is a success (she’s a very glamorous lady in certain shots of the film), her acting career is somewhat questionable judging by how she’s received here. 😦

Over the years, I’ve heard criticisms made against Rosie’s performance as Carly in the film. In fact, she’s been nominated twice for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Screen Couple with Shia LaBeouf in 2012. This is a shame, as me personally; I found Rosie’s performance to be quite alright. 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a great performance. It’s not anything spectacular. But I think she does fine here with playing the character she’s asked to play. She also must have been rushed in when hired to replace Megan Fox, so it can’t have been easy. I have no problem with Rosie’s performance.

Mind you, she hasn’t done much in terms of films lately. So far, she’s only done two movies – ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ and ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’. As I understand it, ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ has been received positively by critics. Mind you, not everyone shares that particular opinion.

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Tim Bradley: Hmm! I wonder if it’s worth risking putting in a Timelord007 cameo, knowing how much he despises ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, even though I’ve not seen it myself.

WilliamsFan92: (interrupts) He’ll probably say something in the comments section once he’s read this review of yours, Tim.

Tim Bradley: Yeah, I suppose that’s true. Ah well. At least I’ve given you a cameo in one of my ‘Transformers’ film reviews, WF92.

WilliamsFan92: Indeed. Thanks for letting me have a look in, even though I’m not a ‘Transformers’ fan.

Tim Bradley: No problem. (waves) See you around.

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The problem I have with Carly is that we don’t really know much about her. Yes, we didn’t know much about Mikaela either, but at least I got an impression of her background in terms of her having a dad who committed car crimes. With Carly, she’s not really that interesting enough as a character. 😦

Rosie as Carly is saying the lines Mikaela would’ve said had Megan Fox been allowed to return to play her in the third film. We’re supposed to think Sam and Carly have had their relationship for a long time (and in two years, it is possible), but their dialogue could’ve suited Sam and Mikaela more.

Also, the reason given that Mikaela dumped Sam following the end of the second film is rather lazily written and handled. After all the stuff said between Sam and Mikaela loving each other in ‘Revenge of the Fallen’, it does feel rather hollow. It just adds to the underwhelming feel of this particular film.

By the way, the film’s script is by Ehren Kruger only, as Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have left the ‘Transformers’ film series by this point. I’ve seen another film with a script by Ehren Kruger and that was 2019‘s ‘Dumbo’. I enjoyed that film when I saw it at the cinema, though that got mixed reviews.

The impression I get with these ‘Transformers’ films is that director Michael Bay’s voice speaks out more than the writer’s. The same can be said with 2019’s ‘Dumbo’ with Tim Burton directing that, but at least I felt I gained certain enjoyment from that film compared to a ‘Transformers’ film. 😦

Josh Duhamel returns to play William Lennox (now promoted to Colonel), who commands the NEST strike team working with the Autobots to fight the Decepticons. Lennox has become generic as an army officer over the years in these films. We also don’t know what’s become of his wife and baby daughter lately.

Tyrese Gibson is also back as Robert Epps, who’s now retired from the army and is now working at Kennedy Space Center. Honestly, I forget he retired from the army here, since he seems to get right back into it when he, Sam and Carly are running around Chicago and battling Decepticons in the city.

There’s also… (groans) …John Turturro as Simmons in the movie! Does Michael Bay think Simmons is a popular comic relief character and wants him to be in every ‘Transformers’ movie he makes? Maybe Simmons is a popular character for him, but I find him annoying every time I see him! 😡

A new cast member in the film is Patrick Dempsey as Dylan Gould, who is a wealthy car collector and Carly’s employer. And he secretly works with the Decepticons in this. I’ve seen Patrick Dempsey in the 2007 film ‘Enchanted’. Honestly, I would rather watch ‘Enchanted’ instead of ‘Dark of the Moon’. 😐

And of course, there are Sam’s parents – Kevin Dunn as Ron and Julie White as Judy. Thankfully, they’re only in the film for a few scenes, but they’re still annoying as ever. Even Julie White doesn’t seem able to calm down when she and Ron are talking to Sam in what’s meant to be a family talk. 😐

Yeah, you see, there’s a moment where Sam asks his parents where Carly is and whether she’s the right woman for him. Now ideally, I would’ve liked a scene like that. This is especially when, in an ideal situation, Sam’s parents should be wise and supportive to him in the decisions he makes in life.

But it doesn’t help when you have Julie White’s acting being uneven at times and the tone not taken in a serious manner when it needs to be. Also, this is after the reveal of an Autobot leader being a traitor and working with the Decepticons and not matching the film’s tone, which we’ll get to later. 😦

There’s also…(sighs)…John Malkovich as Bruce Brazos, Sam’s employer and boss at Accuretta Systems. Now I’ve seen John Malkovich in ‘Of Mice and Men’ and ‘Johnny English’ and found him good in those films. Here however, he comes across as silly, especially when he’s wishing to see Bumblebee in Carly’s flat.

Frances McDormand stars as Charlotte Mearing, the Director of National Intelligence. I found Mearing to be a mean-spirited woman for most of the time, especially when she dismisses the Autobots and Sam. Also, the scenes she has with John Turturro’s Simmons are really uncomfortable.

The film also features Keiko Agena as Charlotte Mearing’s aide and assistant, Lester Speight as ‘Hardcore’ Eddie, John Kelly as Stone, Mark Ryan (who voiced Bumblebee and Jetfire in the previous ‘Transformers’ films) as a military drone operator, and Glenn Morshower as General Morshower. 🙂

Alan Tudyk (who would go on to be in ‘Rogue One’) plays Dutch Gerhardt, who is Simmons’ personal assistant in the film. Apparently, Alan Tudyk played the role in the film ’28 Days’. Not that you would have known that fact. I certainly didn’t know about it and the two movies are totally unconnected. 😐

There’s also Ken Jeong as Jerry ‘Deep’ Wang, a paranoid software programmer at Sam’s workplace. I’ve seen and heard Ken Jeong in films like 2019’s ‘Lady and the Tramp’, ‘Scoob!’ and ‘Tom & Jerry’. In those films, he could be funny, but here, I found him awkward and pretty uncomfortable to watch. 😦

Elya Baskin stars as Cosmonaut Dimitri in the film… Wait, hang on! Eyla Baskin! He played Mr. Ditkovitch in ‘Spider-Man 2’ and ‘Spider-Man 3’. Wow! He’s in this movie! I didn’t realise this until my Mum pointed him out to me when we were watching the film. Amazing that she recognised him and I didn’t!

 

Mr. Ditkovitch: Give me rent!
Peter Parker: You’ll get your rent when you fix this DAMN DOOR!!!

Also…this moment made me a laugh.

Simmons : Don’t worry, I speak their language.
Russian Doorman opens sliding hatch in door.
Simmons : Do svidaniya.
Russian Doorman : That means goodbye!
Russian Doorman closes sliding hatch in door.

(cracks up) I’m sorry! For all the many faults this film has, there is an occasional moment where it got me to laugh at some point. Maybe my mind wasn’t geared in by this stage of the film, but seeing Simmons get the Russian greeting wrong and having the door ‘slammed’ in his face was hilarious. 😀

There’s Bill O’Rilley from ‘The O’Reilly Factor’, Andy Daly as mailroom worker Donnie, Iqbal Theba as a UN Secretary General, Sammy Shiek as Faraj, Anthony Azizi as Sulimani, Mindy Sterling as insurance agent Martha and Chris Sheffield as Pimply Corporate Kid. Most of these I’ve forgotten. 😐

Right! After talking about the human characters for a bit, let’s talk about the Transformers characters. Once again, there’s not much to say about them when they don’t get enough focus. Many of the Transformers characters that I know and love don’t match to their 1980s counterparts.

There’s Optimus Prime again, voiced by Peter Cullen, and there’s not much to say about him. Mind you, he does seem to go on the verge of psychotic when killing Megatron and Sentinel Prime in cold blood. So much for him saying “You left me no choice, brother” to Megatron at the first film’s end. 😦

Bumblebee still hasn’t a voice in the film, as his voice box is still damaged. What’s the point of including Bumblebee if you’re not going to develop his character and not going to give him his voice back? Yes, there are moments that he has with Sam, but they’re very fleeting whilst you’re viewing the film.

Megatron is back in the film, voiced by Hugo Weaving, and he still does nothing. He’s badly wounded from the end of the second film and he seems to stay badly wounded for most of the third film. In the two years’ past, couldn’t Starscream have decently repaired Megatron’s face in that time?

The biggest Transformer character and villain of mention to overshadow Megatron is of course Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy. Sentinel Prime was Optimus’ predecessor as the leader of the Autobots, who later becomes a Decepticon double agent in the film, which I’m pretty divided on.

Now first of all, I find the casting of Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime to be rather fitting. This is especially when he voiced Galvatron in the 1986 ‘Transformers’ film. Mind you, I wish Leonard Nimoy voiced Megatron in the ‘Transformers’ movies, knowing what will happen in the fourth film. 😐

However, I’m curious as to why the decision was made to make Sentinel Prime a bad guy instead of a good guy. I can’t claim to know much about Sentinel as a ‘Transformers’ character, but from what I’ve seen in the cartoon show and in a ‘Transformers’ reference book, I assumed he was a good guy.

Granted, it’s a shocking twist to find Sentinel being a double agent for the Decepticons when he should be a Prime and representing good in the Autobot ranks. But this does reek of lazy writing on the film’s part and I think more should’ve been explored on why Sentinel turned out to be a villain.

Also, the film annoyingly can’t stop itself from letting in a couple of ‘Star Trek’ Spock in-jokes for viewers to witness in the film. Because…you know…Leonard Nimoy played Spock in ‘Star Trek’. The first one is when Wheelie is watching clips of a ‘Star Trek’ episode called ‘Amok Time’ which features Spock in that. 😐

Again, I’d rather watch ‘Amok Time’ instead of watching ‘Dark of the Moon’. I know it’s meant to foreshadow Leonard Nimoy ending up becoming the film’s villain, but I can’t help feel there’s something better I should be watching. And of course, there’s this cringeworthy line said by Sentinel.

Sentinel Prime: You simply fail to understand…that the needs of the many…outweigh the needs of the few.

ARGH!!!!!!! How can you make a famous line said by Spock from ‘Star Trek II’ sound so awful?!!! Well done, ‘Dark of the Moon’! You managed to do it! 😡

There’s also Ironhide, voiced by Jess Harnell. He dies in this. Yeah! I forgot Ironhide was killed in this film. Goes to show how empty the character development is in these movies. There’s also Starscream (voiced by Charlie Adler), who has his eye taken out by Sam and he gets destroyed too. 😐

There’s Ratchet, voiced by Robert Foxworth. I’ve forgotten about him. There’s Sideswipe, voiced by James Remar. I’ve forgotten about him too. There’s also Dino/Mirage, voiced by Francesco Quinn. Honestly, I didn’t know he was in this movie since I wasn’t introduced to him like I should’ve been. 😐

There’s Que/Wheeljack, voiced by George Coe; Wheelie, voiced by Tom Kenny, who gets too much screen-time in this; and Brains, Wheeler’s partner, voiced by Reno Wilson. Honestly, you could say Wheelie and Brains replaced Skids and Mudflap from the second film, except being less offensive. 😐

There’s also Shockwave, Soundwave and Barricade, voiced by Frank Welker; Roadbuster, voiced by Ron Bottitta; Leadfoot, voiced by John DiMaggio; Laserbeak, voiced by Keith Szarabajka – Wow! I didn’t know Laserbeak could talk from the 1980s cartoon show 😐 – and Igor, voiced by Greg Berg.

There’s also Crowbar, voiced by Jim Wood. And there’s Topspin, Crankcase, Hatchet, Driller, Devcon, Long Haul, Scrapper, Sideways and Loader. Yeah, I know it looks like I’m skipping through these Transformers characters and that I’m not identifying them as to whether they’re Autobots or Decepticons.

But it’s very easy to do that in this review. If the movie won’t identify who each of the ‘Transformers’ characters are in the film like the 1980s cartoon tried to do, why should I bother identifying each of the ‘Transformers’ characters in my review? It’s so easy to fall into that laziness quite frankly.

I also know that the film wants us to feel like it’s the end of the world when the Decepticons are attacking and killing many people in Chicago in the film’s final act, but the tone is so uneven that the apocalyptic end doesn’t match to the comedy scenes we had beforehand. I find this aspect pretty frustrating.

I should mention that the film’s story is loosely based on the three-parter ‘The Ultimate Doom’ from the 1980s cartoon, which I’ve seen, especially with the usage of space bridges and everything. But it’s not really worth talking about this when the film doesn’t seem bothered to focus on story and character.

I felt more investment in the stories and characters of the 1980s ‘Transformers’ cartoon show and the ‘Beast Wars Transformers’ show from the 1990s than these films. I also have happier memories of me attending ‘Doctor Who’ conventions in the year 2011 compared to watching ‘Dark of the Moon’ at the cinema.

Depending on the Blu-ray edition you have, the Blu-ray special features are as follows. There’s ‘Above and Beyond: Exploring ‘Dark of the Moon’, a five-part making-of documentary; ‘Uncharted Territory: NASA’s Future Then and Now’; ‘Deconstructing Chicago: Mutli-Angle Sequences’; ‘The Art of Cybertron’ still galleries; ‘The Dark of the Moon’ archive; ‘The Matrix of Marketing’ which contains film trailers and posters; a 2-D Blu-ray copy of the film and a DVD copy of the film.

Whilst those special features would be fascinating to check out on Blu-ray, it doesn’t stop the fact there are a lot of missed opportunities featured in ‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’. It’s a little better than ‘Revenge of the Fallen’, but I still felt really underwhelmed from watching this film again.

I’m glad I stopped watching the ‘Transformers’ films when I did back in 2011 with this film. I gave up on the film series due to there being a lack of character development amongst both the humans and the Transformers that I wanted to see. Sadly, that wasn’t to be provided with Michael Bay in charge.

At this point, I don’t know what ‘Age of Extinction’ and ‘The Last Knight’ will be like, but it doesn’t look good. 😦

‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ rating – 4/10

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The previous film was ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ (Film)	The next film is ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ (Film)
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