Transformers Dark of the Moon Review

Dark of the Moon starts off with Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) fresh out of college living with his new girlfriend Carly (played by the infamous Megan Fox replacement Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Sam has trouble adjusting to the average day life and struggles to not only find a job, but to live a life without the adventure with the Autobots. Meanwhile the Autobots continue to work with the N.E.S.T task force to hunt down and eliminate the remaining Decepticons, but during a mission stumble upon an artifact which houses secrets for both the humans and transformers. This leads into a story filled with government conspiracies, pointless side characters, and essentially a rehash of the previous films story. The thing that pushes Dark of the Moon ahead of the previous two Transformer films is that while its story is stupid, naive, and often times tripping over itself; it is atleast coherant.

But not many people go to see these movies for their story; they go to see giant robots fighting and blowing things up, and in that sense the movie succeds. The movie is a visual spectacle, with every one of the hundred of millions of dollers used to make this fillm represented on the screen. The sight of the completly destroyed Chicago is a sight to behold. The movie just looks brutal, especially with the few lingering shots where we see human being cruely murdered by the Decepticons. This is the first film where they actually seem like a scary threat. All the robot fights are fun, fast, and hard hitting, but the film goes into a bad habit of overusing slow motion camera zooms during almost all of the fights. All of these fights are great fun, but they really help to show the inherant flaws of the film. Besides fighting the Transformers have nothing to do.

The Transformers themselves are the biggest problem in their own movie. The story and direction almost always puts the human characters (none of which we are given a reason to care about) before them; in fact most of the time the actual robots are mearly in the background just standing boldly. But even more then that is how pointless all but Optimus Prime, BumbleBee, and the newest character Sentinel Prime (voiced to perfection by Leonard Nimoy) are. Megatron, the main antagonist of the previous films, has maybe five minutes of screen time in total. Director Michael Bay just does not seem to understand the point of these characters, and such seemingly removes the personality from everyone. Take Optimus Prime for example; in the first movie he says "Freedom is the right to all sentient beings". If this is the characters established belief how come in every movie we see this exact character running around ripping off the faces (literally!) of anyone who stands in his way? Not only does he not give us any reason to care about the characters, but he makes it nearly impossible to because the audience is not given the chance to understand them.

The movie is long, running at 157 minutes long, and for the last hour or so you will lose all track of time and just enjoy the mindless chaos the ensnares you. The 90 minutes the preceed it though are so mindnumbingly dull that it makes all the pro's of the film shine more. This movie is purely stupid fun. The best complement anyone can give this film is that it is the best out of Michael Bay's trilogy, which take that how you want, but if your looking for some fun you can surely do worse then Dark of the Moon.

The Problem with Cars.

As of writing Cars 2 is enjoying its first week in theaters, and while it is pulling in plenty of cash from its opening weekend the movie is being critically panned from many film critics. Not just that but the Cars as a franchise is constantly deemed as the worst of the Pixar films (still though, being called the worst Pixar film is like saying you got bronze in the Olympics, your still better then most), but why exactly is Cars the worst of them all? Well it really comes down too a few simple points:

1. Cars ignores the Pixar Fanbase

Pixar is widely renowned as one of the best companies in the business by fans and critics alike. One of the reasons is their choice of subjects they pick to base their films around. Just to name a few: Monsters, Superheroes, Robots, and Action Figures. All of these are key components to the nerd demographic. They will eat these topics up. Cars on the other hand is John Lasseter's love letter to his favorite past time; Nascar... yeah that does not go well with the legion of fans that adore their previous topics. Cars just did not click with the adults as much as their other films did. All Pixar movies have something for everyone child and adult alike; but Cars seemed only for the kids. Many believed this to be a sign for the worse for Pixar, but the reality was things were never better for Pixar. Cars was the biggest merchandising film of all time for Pixar (the video game alone sold 14 million unit!). This alone is what paved way for its sequal.

2. No one cares about these characters

In a good film the characters developement and arc is what should naturally progress the plot. This is arguably the largest problem with Cars; we are not given any reason to care at all about Lightning McQueen or Mater, and the movie has nearly a non-existent supporting cast. Lightning's arc in the original Cars is for him to overcome his arrogance and learn everything is not about him. His arc goes through because the plot demands him to change. Meanwhile Mater seems to exist for the sole reason of being made fun of, being sad, and making stereotypical southern and fart jokes. These are not good characters. Look at some of Pixar's other characters in their catalog of films:

1. Woody and Buzz a toy's who fail to realize that their good life with their owner has an experation date. From Buzz's ignorance to realize that he is not really a space ranger; to Woody's frail attempts to ignore the endgame for all toys: eventually you will be forgotten. The arc's carry a heavy reality on their shoulders as well as the potent ability to tug at our heart strings.
2. Marlin and Dory from Finding Nemo are the married couple of the Pixar characters that are not really married. Marlin has a fear of society and shelters his son due to fear of losing him. By losing Nemo his worst fears come to existance, and Dory comes in to help him let go of these problem. Marlin's fear orginates from losing his wife, and Dory is a projection of her. The similarities between his wife and Dory aid him into relizing his problem. The depth of death and moving on show the dark undertone on the movie that brings life to the characters.
3. Wall-E and EVE showcase the simpilist human emotion: love and the need to have someone. In the beginning Wall-E has lived his life in solititude until EVE arrives. Before she arrives though Wall-E is a complete loner, which is to relate to that horrible feeling everyone in the audience can relate too. When he finds someone the audience feel genuine emotion towards this budding romance because that emptiness is filled. Wall-E's arc is one of those few in film's that solely relies on the audience's own experiences and it ended up working. This gamble the movie made is one Cars never has, and never will make.

Cars is not a bad franchise, but when you look at the whole picture of Pixar's archive it sticks out like a sore thumb. It really is a shame too because with the release of Cars 2 shows Pixar is starting up some bad habits. Before this Toy Story, their most prized and popular franchise, was the only one that had sequals. Those sequals were made to complete an arc of all the characters. Cars on the otherhand had no need for a sequal except for more merchandising. If Cars 2 is a success (and lets be honest it will be) you can definatly expect more Cars in the future.