If you have not seen 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' and actually care about spoilers DO NOT CONTINUE. I will not signpost when they are about to crop up in my stream-of-consciousness self-aggrandising rant-slash-review-slash-opinion.
Now I will not pretend that I expect to make any friends from this post but, even after having called it contentious, I don't expect to lose any either. That would be the trivial part. But it boils down to this: I liked 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'. It is the best of the three live-action films released thus far. I specify live-action as these are the only ones I have seen and I am quite sure that many true Transformers fans would crucify me for blasphemy for, even accidentally, implying that any of the Michael Bay films are superior to the cartoons.
But yes, best of the live-action films and I won't even apologise for saying so. I announced this upon walking out of the movie and was greeted with incredulity on several fronts and, honestly, that surprises me. The most apparent reason that has lead me to this conclusion is that, unlike the previous films, the events within the film actually had impact upon the world in which they are set. There is an hour long siege and battle in Chicago in which large numbers of people (this is part of a later point) die and buildings razed. In the original Transformers all robotic action takes place in out of the way locations. I appreciate that narratively speaking this makes sense so as to not have humankind alerted en masse to the autobot presence on earth, however it means that all that action lacks any real repercussions to the movie-world as a whole. In 'Rise of the Fallen' everything happens in the middle of a desert where the worst that happens is an abandoned settlement and a few pyramids get damaged and no one's crying over those. But a massively populated city? Shit just got real, people! The cat is well and truly out of the bag, the world knows about the Transformers and is running scared from the ensuing death that knowledge has brought. That brings a certain sense of urgency and gravity to proceedings that just makes for a better experience. Also Optimus Prime was seemed happy to have Chicago as collateral damage just to be able to say 'I told you so'. That's dark and I respond to it.
Also, as mentioned before - people. This may mostly be down to the fact that I do not do cars and so, in any scene with a lot of sentient transformed cars duking it out, cannot really work out who I am seeing tearing whom a new exhaust, but having a lot more human characters in this movie just meant that, for a larger proportion of the film, I actually felt like I was following proceedings. I am not sure if this is a failing as equal on my part as the film's, but I know I can't be the only person who wants to watch these films who is rubbish when it comes to identifying one combustion engine powered vehicle from another. I have seen three of these films now, and even seen a few of the cartoons in my time, and I still cannot tell you what type of car Bumblebee is disguised as. I actually don't care. I watch films for the human interest, to watch a story unfold, to be moved or excited or feel some emotion. Identifying cars does not do that. That's why the cars are given characters. Bumblebee 'voice' is broken to humanise him so we, as a -human- audience, care about him. A broken alternator would be far more damaging to Bumblebee as a car, but doesn't carry the same emotive weight as the burden actually handed to him. We need human interest in films for them to get the job done, and what better way to do that, even more than humanising some robots, than to actually have already human characters. And, lets face it, this is a battle over the planet Earth, where humanity lives; not such a terrible plan to have them well represented in that battle and thus the film.
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. A lot of people have expressed dissatisfaction (putting it mildly) it her acting ability or even just her presence in the film. I have seen some shockingly poor acting in my time to the point that, beyond being able to acknowledge that, no, she wasn't the best actor in the film, I don't think it really warrants comment. I didn't find myself suddenly unable to suspend my disbelief the moment she opened her mouth. In fact I believe she seemed to display a good knack for portraying a range of human emotion for someone on, I believe, her first acting job. As a comparison to someone coming from the same previous job she did worlds better than Lily Cole in her appearance in the latest series of Doctor Who. Ms Huntington-Whiteley made half the cast of Hollyoaks look like they belonged in a PG Tips advert when it comes to acting ability. Also, her character actually was actually integral to the plot, unlike Megan Fox. I cannot for one second imagine Mikaela being in a position to bring Sam into contact with the human contingent of the Decepticon foothold on Earth. Nor can I imagine her to have the intelligence necessary to use psychological warfare to trick Megatron into fighting alongside Optimus Prime and turning the tide of the battle. Sure the film still could have been made without these things happening, but would it have been as good? Simply put: no. I could even quite happily cope with Mikaela being retconned out of the first two films to be replaced with Casey and not lose any sleep over it.
I think that about covers why I'm right. Feel free to disagree, I don't mind. I was going to mention something else, but it isn't related and I think I have already made this post ranty, rambly and incoherent enough so it shall just wait for another day. Considering I normally worry I have nothing to blog about, planning for the future posts in wholly new ground.
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