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

Ted

Seth MacFarlane's feature length cinematic debut was always going to draw some (perhaps unfair) comparisons with the various TV series that made his name, yet instead of going out of his way to avoid them, Ted deliberately provokes them, featuring Family Guy references by the bucket load, and including a vast proportion of the cast taking cameo or even lead roles. It does also fall foul of some typical MacFarlane issues, such as the highly American biased humour which may leave international audiences somewhat in the dark. The remainder does benefit from his more standard brand of controversial comedy, though some moments do feel more like misses than hits. The result is certainly one of the more surreal movies of the year, and in my opinion, not overly warranting of the critical acclaim. I may be slightly snobbish, but I'm not a massive fan of the constant drug use, and the story does seem to play pretty predictably with a relatively standard 'romance versus bromance' plotline without a big enough comedic payoff. With the second instalment recently confirmed, it'll be interesting to see how they manage to turn this into a fuller franchise without having to resort to ever more base levels of stupidity for increasingly cheaper laughs. Crikey, I am a snob.



The sad thing is, the first thing I noticed about this scene in the movie was the Axe (Lynx) shampoo in the background. Work to live... Work to live.