Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Analysis and Review

The action gets better and the story gets longer

After the revelation of actually analyzing Revenge of the Fallen, my expectations for the next film were quickly set on low. However when the first trailers popped up all of a sudden my expectations were high and the new addition of Rosie Huntington Whitely (who I predicted probably can't act but would like more than Megan Fox after what happened in the last movie) so like last time: myself and 7 of my other friends (not the unusually large number of 14 like last time) decide to go see the movie. And again, even though we all showed up really really really really early to the premier showing, we still wound up in the front row. So was the reaction exactly the same as my experience with Revenge of the Fallen? Well...

The Plot

Despite being awarded by the President for his heroic acts in the last film and meeting a new girl (Rosie Huntington Whitely) after Mikaela breaks up with him, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is having a hard time finding a job. Lucky for him he does get one while at the same time the Autobots led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) discover that there is an ancient secret hidden on the moon. That secret? Their long lost leader Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) who has a device that can save their home world of Cybertron. Unfortunately for them a battle scarred Megatron (Hugo Weaving) and his Decepticons forces are once again after this device, leading all plot points to collide in Chicago.

Analysis

Just in case you didn't read my review on Revenge of the Fallen, particularly the Analysis portion, I'll just summarize it for this one. Its better to watch this movie with a crowd of rowdy fans on opening night than to see this a week later or home alone. Because watching this movie alone and not surrounded by rowdy fans will result into a startling revelation: the movie is shit. Well for me personally not complete shit but I liked it enough to say that I still enjoy it but I'm not going to deny that it is still bad.

Review

There is a pattern I'd like to point out. Strange Prologue. Sam is down on his luck. Something gets discovered. Autobots enter the picture. Government enters the picture. Decepticons show up. Confront the villain. Make out with hot girlfriend who is way out of Sam's league. That seems to be the pattern that these movies are going at. It worked well for the first movie because... that's the first movie. It didn't work well for the second movie because the writers tried to hide that it is the same movie by adding a bunch of other stuff that does a poor stuff of hiding the sameness. Then there is this movie that once again adds a lot of stuff that is not really necessary. However this time around all that other stuff is actually characters this time. That's right, this time more characters that I don't remember their names are added in order to give this movie a more ensemble feel than the long drawn out epic feel they were going for from the last one. However like I said I don't remember most of the new characters. And if I do, I'm trying to understand why do they have to be in the movie.

The biggest addition that should be noted is Patrick Dempsey as..... Dylan Gould. Had to look that up for a moment. He plays Sam's new girlfriend's boss who also happens to be in an alliance with the Decepticons. Why? Uh.... I don't really know why. Other than the fact that he'll be spared from whatever it is the Decepticons planned to do with humanity, just know that he's evil. This could've been a great role for Dempsey who at the time was only known as McDreamy from Grey's Anatomy. It is obvious that he wanted to use this role to break away from the mold, but it doesn't really help him because the character was not really well thought out other than he's good looking and he's evil.

Then let's talk about the obvious. Megan Fox is gone after having a dispute with Michael Bay. So she was written out and replaced by a character straight from the cartoons called Carly. And who did they get to play this character from the G1 show? A Victoria's Secret Model that Bay worked with on one of the lingerie empire's commercials. Oh yeah, and because she's British the character is now British. Rosie Huntington Whitely does offer something fresh despite having no great acting skills and not a very good range. Unlike the relationship between Mikaela and Sam in the previous two films there was something genuinely real about the relationship between Carly and Sam in this film. Again, I'm going to stress that she's not that great. And critics expecting her to wow them were really harsh. But then again that's what we do. But the thing is she was more believable as someone who genuinely likes Sam rather than Fox's Mikaela character. And if the goal was to make the relationship believable, then by all means it worked. Could they have gotten a real actress and made it better? Honestly no, because even a talented actress like Gemma Arterton (who was in the running before Whitely) would not have been able to save a poorly written role. The only thing that saved it was the way she is around LaBeouf's Sam. And frankly that's all I could ask from her really. Plus her character does a really ballsy move in the movie that automatically makes her better than Mikaela.

Shia LaBeouf does what Shia LaBeouf does... play Sam Witwicky. And yup. He's still Sam Witwicky.

Then of course lets get to the big villain of the story: Leonard Nimoy's Sentinel Prime. PLOT TWIST! Okay I know I shouldn't spoil it, but the movie has been out for a long time by now and even when you see the movie you kinda see it coming. Because first of all the Marketing and Official Plot Synopsis released by the studio makes it seem like Shockwave (the cyclops robot riding the gigantic metal worm squid thing) is the main villain. The thing is in the trailers you never see this supposed villain do anything except for one shot pose to cock his gun. So it leads one to wonder is he really the bad guy? Then of course when Sentinel comes in one immediately knows that there is going to be a twist that he's the bad guy. And why is he the bad guy? "The Needs of the Many, outweigh the Needs of the Few." Good way to quote Spock, Mr. Nimoy. So really his motivations don't exactly make sense about bringing an entire dying planet next to a live planet when the device that can teleport things could've easily just teleported human slaves to their planet if that was the plan. What was the point of teleporting the entire planet if they can just do that? It doesn't make sense!

Yes, the action in this movie is a lot better than the previous two combined. Things can be seen clearly and we can easily tell who is fighting who. This is mainly attributed to director Michael Bay adjusting to IMAX 3D cameras which forces him to shoot this way. And thankfully for those of us who just want to watch a movie where giant robots kill giant robots, it is a blessing. However the action does get dragged out. And I mean really dragged out. The Third Act usually consists of the last 30 minutes of a movie while this one it seems to consist of the last hour of a movie. And to top it all of the beginning did kind of drag as well. But at least it didn't drag to the point where things got boring. It was still fun and the action is exciting to watch. And even though the action is clearer, it seems like one could care less about the safety of the heroic Autobots against the slew of nameless Decepticons.

Also, yes, the final three way battle between Optimus Prime, Sentinel Prime and Megatron (remember him?) was not as great as the rest of the action. And too bad that once that battle ends, it is the end of the movie. Literally.

Final Thoughts

This was a lot better than the last movie, yet still not as good as the first. It definitely could've used a trim on the running time and it probably would've been at least equal to the first movie. At least I can still watch it and find it enjoyable. Just pure fun dumb enjoyment. But then again, nothing beats seeing this film with rowdy fans on opening night.

SCORE: 6.5/10 - The best action in the trilogy

For a review of the previous film, CLICK HERE
For a review of the next film, CLICK HERE

Let's Remake Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS PURELY A "WHAT IF" SCENARIO AND NOT REAL. JUST PURE FUN. SO READ, THINK, COMMENT, THEN MOVE ON.

My Opinion of the Movie

I'm going to state this first and foremost that I am a HUGE fan of director Zack Snyder. He may not exactly make the greatest movies in the world but I will never call any of them terrible. Though his original concept film Sucker Punch nearly made me deem it his only true terrible film. I enjoyed the visuals. The anime vibe. The Heavy Metal vibe. The girls. The samurai. The Germans. The Dragon. The Robots. But most importantly of all, the potential story that was there.

It had a good idea: a young girl is placed in a world where she is exploited and uses her imagination to make her strong enough to escape that world. Sounds good on paper. But it takes a lot to pull it off. 

So let's Remake It... The Story That Is

The first thing I want to point out is that I had no problem with the cast of the film. I am aware that Amanda Seyfried was suppose to play the main role but was happy that Emily Browning was casted. Mainly because during the year Sucker Punch came out, Amanda was in almost everything so it was nice to see a different girl in this one. So I'm sticking with the cast. Emily Browning (Babydoll), Jena Malone (Rocket), Abbie Cornish (Sweetpea), Jaime Chung (Amber), Vanessa Hudgens (Blondie), Oscar Isaacs (Blue), Carla Gugino (Gorski) and Scott Glenn (Wise Man). I know Jon Hamm plays an integral role in the film and a major role in the film's director's cut, but lets see if this story still needs that role.

The basics

In the original film a girl gets sent to a mental asylum after accidentally killing her little sister during an attempt to stop her evil step father from doing god knows what to them. Once there, the asylum all of a sudden with no explanation turns into a brothel/club that exploits women in numerous ways. She is forced to become a dancer and whenever she dances she enters a fantasy world that reflects what is going on with her at the moment. She plots to escape the asylum, for no other reason than wanting to escape the asylum. She goes about doing this with the help of the star dancer and her sister along with two other girls. The lead girl dances to distract the owners and patrons of the brothel from what her cohorts are doing. Their actions are represented through the fantasy sequences. Things go horribly wrong and most of them wind up dead leaving the lead girl and the star as the ones left standing. She comes to the conclusion that the Star is the one who deserves to escape and sacrifices herself so that the star does so. During that sacrifice it reverts back to the asylum where it is revealed that she has been lobotomized and in a figurative sense has been set free.

That's pretty much what happened in the film. Now, while the fantasy elements do stand out pretty damn well on their own, they seem really out of place in the movie. A lot of pieces are there but none of them actually thought through. Now, let met give a rundown of how I personally would've made the story or would've like to see the story go:

The Remake

The beginning is the same. A mother dies. She is survived by her two children. Daughters: Babydoll (Emily Browning) and Babydoll's sister. Their stepfather believes he will inherit the mother's money only to discover that it will only go to the children. Now, in the original film it was kind of ambiguous as to what he was going to do them. The film suggests rape, but in context that wouldn't necessarily help him take the money. The stepfather knocks out Babydoll and then brings her to a Brothel owned by a mobster named Blue Jones, a man who collects special cases. The stepfather bribes Blue to ensure that she will be incapable of speaking, to which Blue accepts.

The Brothel is revealed to be a meeting point for several worlds. There are fantasy characters, sci-fi characters, and noir characters populating the Brothel. The girls of the brothel all look like they're human but in reality they all belonged to a different world. Babydoll at first believes that she has truly gone insane but becomes completely convinced that it is true when she looks out the windows to see different worlds.

This is where we start to get into the weird realms. From here, it is mainly about Babydoll wanting to escape to get revenge on her Stepfather.  That is the key component that I see missing from the original film. She wants to escape, but her reason for escaping is not clearly defined. Her mission should be to escape and get revenge from her Stepfather. From there it could go into this whole "how do I escape a realm that exists outside of reality?" That poses a powerful obstacle for her to go through. That is where the roles of the other girls come in.

They will still play a role in her escape but it would have more to do with discovering how to shift back to their respective realities. One of the girls can come from the Steampunk WWI reality, another from the Heavy Metal Fantasy reality, then the Cyberpunk reality. Part of the plot could be that in order to enter the reality they must get past a security system specifically meant for that reality. Which is where these boss fights will come in. Each boss defeated allows each girl to escape.

When it finally reaches that point where Babydoll gets to escape the asylum it reverts back to her world and she finds her stepfather. She gets her revenge on him in almost a high fantasy battle which ends with the death of her stepfather as well as her recapture.

That is when the revelation shows the big twist from the movie, she has really gone insane but used those insanities in order to stay strong to accomplish her mission. The girls that helped her all escaped the asylum and are living the lives that they see fit.

Would that have been better?

The remake I suggested sound convoluted but even then, there's no denying that some form of story can be told from this concept. Just because my vision doesn't exactly add up doesn't mean that there is no other way to do it. This is just one of many.

The big question is. If you have to. How would you do it?