Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Well now, here we go. Hasbro's 1980's animated series turned live action franchise reaches its third instalment, and with the 'loss' of teenage poster girl Megan Fox, Michael Bay's ambition to make a more mature Transformers movie comes to fruition. And that's really where it all starts falling apart. 'Mature' in this sense was obviously taken to mean 'massively convoluted', as the plot limps through a fairly standard formula suffering the same problems as almost all other movie trilogies based solely on the success of the first; construct a story that follows on from the last, but with absolutely nothing to go from (cough, The Matrix, cough). Sadly though, the misery doesn't just end there. Fox's replacement, the unarguably beautiful Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, was brought in fresh from her day job as a Victoria's Secret model, (not an actress), a fact that she happily cements throughout the film. Bay's attempt to also weave in real world stories (the moon landing, Chernobyl etc...) and give them relevance in his Transformers universe doesn't really work. The final straw however, which single handedly results in the loss of the film's final precious star in its TFC rating, is simply some of the most contrived and hideously poorly thought through dialogue committed to screen in 2011. While few will be strangers to guest star Leonard Nimoy's unmistakable catch phrase ("The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"), the utterly reprehensible action of crowbarring it into a completely different franchise evidently didn't ring alarm bells for Bay and his production team, and yet all it manages to do every time I think of it is fill me with anger. Unfortunately then for Dark of the Moon, two stars feels really rather too generous considering the vast failings and unutterably repellent dialogue larceny, whereas one is perhaps a little harsh for what is (in places at least) able to pass as vaguely entertaining.

I know it's confusing Rosie. That's because all the action is happening behind you...

Vital Statistics
Director	Michael Bay
Cast	Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey
Length	154 mins
Post Credits Scene	During but not post. And not worth waiting for.
TFC Mash-Up	Erm... Transformers meets basically any alien invasion movie ever made...
Star Rating

Click

'Click' really confused me from the start. Not from a plot point of view - that seemed moronically simple - a technology-based rehash of a somewhat exhausted Hollywood concept; a neglectful jerk of a father finds a universal remote control that allows him to skip through parts of his life, until it all goes wrong and he gets his all important epiphany too late. Perhaps more perplexing was who on Earth this film was aimed at. With so many overt references to drugs and sex, it seems unlikely to have been made with suitability for kids in mind, and yet with the humour being so decidedly childish, I found it hard to think of an adult group who may be interested in laying claim. Perhaps most frightening of all however, were the worryingly big-name cast members who should really have known better (David Hasselhoff's inclusion being the sole exception).

David Hasselhoff relaxes on set by doing his own search for America's big new 'talent'

Normally, Adam Sandler's appointment at the helm of any movie would be indicative enough of at least some mild amusement. Sadly however, in the case of 'Click', the only comedic options available are so juvenile - instances of puerile toilet humour and desperate slapstick - that the whole thing just grates from the outset. What's more, the fact that Adam Sandler is able to play such a contemptible jackass so effortlessly doesn't make the premise any less awkward or onerous to watch. Fortunately, the backup of Kate Beckinsale and Christopher Walken does manage to keep things slightly more grounded and watchable, but at times it's a close run thing.

Regardless of the above, if you do manage to make it through the first three quarters of the film (and credit to you), a few of the closing scenes do actually provide some quite emotional and poignant moments that cement the (albeit rather predictable) moral. Sadly though, as touching as some of them are, those moments are so few and fleeting that they simply don't stand a chance of compensating for the previous 90 minutes.

Truth be told, if I wasn't watching the film safe in the knowledge that I had to write this review at the end, 'Click' would most likely have suffered a rather premature deletion from my hard drive, with all traces of it removed in a particularly forensic fashion. In a funny way then, I'm glad that I was forced to watch until the end, as it's the last 10 minutes that have actually managed to salvage any kind of star for this film at all. Sadly, not everyone is going to be governed by the same motivation, so it's really anyone's guess as to how many people have actually stuck with it long enough to be able to predict the ending on their own.