Cast: Shia LaBeouf, John Turturro, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Running time: 157 minutes
What can you say about the live-action Transformers movie franchise? If you like your movies filled with mindless action and big-budget action sequences where an inordinate amount of things are spectacularly blown up and destroyed, you can’t go far wrong with Dark of the Moon. If on the other hand, you prefer movies that have a semblance of a believable plot, decent acting and character development, and clock in below two and a half hours, then this movie is probably not for you.
I grew up watching the animated Transformers series on TV and was definitely still a fan when I excitedly watched the first live-action Transformers movie on the g big screen. Suffice to say I was not totally convinced of the movie adaptation but by the time I got round to watching the stinker that was Revenge of the Fallen on DVD, my enthusiasm for this particular movie franchise was dead and buried. I did not have much hope for Dark of the Moon, and my worst fears were proved right.
The opening sequence of the movie was interesting enough with a nod to conspiracy theories of the moon landing and space race between the Soviets and the Americans in the 1960s. According to this film, the reason behind the space landing was the discovery that an unidentified object had crash landed on the dark side of the moon and this was what sparked the race between the two superpowers of the time. Fast forward to the present era, and we get reacquainted with Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) and from here, it’s all downhill.
Sam has a new love interest to replace the sultry Megan Fox. Carly (Huntington-Whiteley) has little more to do than to try to look good while pouting at every turn, and while Megan won’t be winning too many acting awards in the near future, it’s hard to see Rosie take her wooden acting to greater cinematic heights.
John Turturro makes a return as the eccentric Agent Simmons, and so do the robots Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee, Megatron, Soundwave and a few new nastier robots. One new robot that makes its debut in this film is Optimus’ predecessor Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy, as the sole survivor of the spacecraft that crash landed on the moon.
In the end Dark of the Moon does little to breathe new life into the franchise – is it just me or is it genuinely confusing who the Autobots and who the Decepticons are when they go toe-to-toe against each other? I haven’t been able to tell since the first movie.
It will probably still appeal to kids but for me, this movie was a great big mindless CGI marathon that left me numb and devoid of emotion by the end. - Review by S.N.