One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Autobots
There are filmmakers whose work is characterized by thrift, efficiency and devotion to the subtleties of cinematic expression. And then there is Michael Bay, whose films are symphonies of excess and redundancy, taking place in a universe full of fire and metal and purged of nuance. I’m not judging, just describing, and since today’s theme is bluntness, I might as well come out and say that “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is among Mr. Bay’s best movies and by far the best 3-D sequel ever made about gigantic toys from outer space.
I apologize if this sounds like faint praise, but let me provide some perspective. The second of Mr. Bay’s “Transformers” movies, “Revenge of the Fallen,” released in 2009, struck me as not only the worst movie of that year — measured in raw box office dollars, it was certainly among the most popular — but also as irrefutable evidence that our once proud civilization was in a state of precipitous decline. Perhaps my own enjoyment of “Dark of the Moon” is further evidence. I can’t decide if this movie is so spectacularly, breathtakingly dumb as to induce stupidity in anyone who watches, or so brutally brilliant that it disarms all reason. What’s the difference?
But this is not about me: it’s about the war between Autobots and Decepticons, rival tribes of extraterrestrial fighting machines — literally! — capable of assuming the shape of motor vehicles. Though a computer-enhanced actor briefly appears playing President Obama, no Transformer is on hand to thank him for rescuing the auto industry.
Speaking of which: in the series’s latest bit of tongue-in-cheek revisionist history, it is disclosed that John F. Kennedy fast-tracked the moon landing not to beat the Soviet Union in the space race, but rather to secure a site where a giant Autobot vessel had crash-landed after a big war on Cybertron. (“Transformers” scholars will recall that the Hoover Dam was built for similar purposes.) The actual Buzz Aldrin shows up to confirm that the giant leap for mankind of July 20, 1969, was actually a small incident in the endless Autobot-Decepticon war, which will, in our own time, lay waste to much of the city of Chicago.
Plot summary is unnecessary: the script, by Ehren Kruger (who joined the franchise with “Revenge” and here proves himself to be a crucial asset), is its own Wikipedia. Everything will be explained, as the cameras swirl and jump, and the music (by Steve Jablonsky) rumbles and blasts.
“Drop the bridge!” someone will say, referring to one of the drawbridges that span the Chicago River. A few seconds later you will see the bridge dropping and, just in case you are uncertain of what is going on (maybe you were texting your friend, who sneaked into “Bad Teacher” with hopes of hearing Cameron Diaz swear), someone else will say, “The bridge is dropping!”
So you don’t have to pay terribly close attention if you want to grasp the basic political and military issues. The Autobots like freedom, the Decepticons do not, and mankind — or at least American mankind, which also likes freedom, as well as the cars and guns that symbolize it — is on the side of the Autobots. But there are traitors, both human and metallic, which makes things complicated in the sense that more exposition is required, and plot twists need to be handled with screaming instances of narrative torque.
But that’s all fine. Really, it is, because Mr. Bay’s lax notions of coherence and plausibility — I’m sorry, I mean his utterly nonexistent notions of coherence and plausibility — are accompanied by a visual imagination that is at once crazily audacious and ruthlessly skillful. Live-action 3-D has been, at least since “Avatar,” a briar patch for filmmakers and a headache for audiences.
“Dark of the Moon” is one of the few recent 3-D movies that justify the upcharge. Mr. Bay clearly enjoys playing with the format, which is also to say that he takes it seriously. A lot of glass and metal comes flying at your head, and you feel surrounded, plunged into a universe governed by new and strange laws of physics. Nothing you see makes any sense at all, but the sensations are undeniable, and kind of fun in their vertiginous, supercaffeinated way.
All the kinetic, explosive fun in the world — which is a rough reckoning of how much Mr. Bay has tried to fit into “Dark of the Moon” — would become tedious if there were not also some other sources of enjoyment on hand. Luckily there are, in the non-anodized, unshiny forms of Frances McDormand, John Turturro, John Malkovich and Ken Jeong. They help make the movie, from time to time, actually funny. It’s not Noël Coward, and it’s not “Bad Teacher,” either, but “Dark of the Moon” is leavened by a sense of its own ridiculousness, and Mr. Kruger has written a few pretty good jokes. Or perhaps left some evocative blank spaces in the script next to Mr. Turturro’s name. His dustup with Bill O’Reilly would be great television, and is pretty good, er, cinema.
Mr. Turturro and Ms. McDormand (who plays a snappish government big shot, as you will know within her first five seconds of screen time) may be the only parts of the movie you want more of. But “more” is Mr. Bay’s watchword, and so you will get a whole lot of everything else. An Autobot with the voice of Leonard Nimoy. Shia LaBeouf running around and shouting at people. Annoying sidekicks (apart from Mr. LaBeouf, who is his own annoying sidekick). A bunch of muscly dudes with big guns who are not robots. (Two of them are Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson.) A bunch of muscly dudes who are.
And a girl, on hand to be rescued, fought over and filmed from behind at a low angle as further testimony to the aesthetic power of 3-D. The previous girl, Megan Fox, was firedbecause of her mouth, and this one, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, has been hired for the same reason. (Why aren’t there any female Autobots or Decepticons? Is that a dumb question?) The robots and cars are soulful, but her character is purely mechanical, a token of reassurance for viewers reveling in a spectacle of cosmic, brutal, heavy-metal homoeroticism. As I said before: I’m not judging, just describing.
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Much of Chicago is wiped out. And where did those toys learn all those bad words?
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON
Opens on Wednesday nationwide.
Directed by Michael Bay; written by Ehren Kruger, based on Hasbro’s Transformers action figures; director of photography, Amir Mokri; edited by Roger Barton, William Goldenberg and Joel Negron; music by Steve Jablonsky; production design by Nigel Phelps; costumes by Deborah L. Scott; visual effects supervisor, Scott Farrar; produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom DeSanto, Don Murphy and Ian Bryce; released by Paramount Pictures in association with Hasbro. Running time: 2 hours 14 minutes.
WITH: Shia LaBeouf (Sam Witwicky), Josh Duhamel (Lennox), John Turturro (Simmons), Tyrese Gibson (Epps), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (Carly), Patrick Dempsey (Dylan), Kevin Dunn (Ron Witwicky), Julie White (Judy Witwicky), Ken Jeong (Jerry Wang), Alan Tudyk (Dutch), Glenn Morshower (General Morshower), Lester Speight (Eddie), John Malkovich (Bruce Brazos), Frances McDormand (Mearing), Leonard Nimoy (Voice of Sentinel Prime) and Bill O’Reilly (Himself).