Today I went to see Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. By now there have been many reviews written about this movie. Some in favor of, some opposed to, and some neutral. Most are better than this one will be, but I had to do this for my own therapy.
I had discussed it (the movie) earlier with my cousin and we both agreed on the idea of not going to see it because of all the advertising in the movie. Actually, my cousin was who told me of all the advertising and this reinforced my lack of interest. I had originally planned to avoid it because of how sexually perverted and "off topic" the second movie was.
I will say this: Transformers 3 disappointed me, bored me, and....surprised me.
I won't do a chronological play by play of this movie. Instead, I will focus on issues and things that "made" the movie, to me.
It started out with the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon and how that was a cover up for the real mission which was to recon a crashed alien vessel. Their was a computer generated JFK (badly generated, I might add), old news reels, vintage footage of the lift off and splash down, etc. After about 20 minutes of space race reminiscing we open up to 2011, with a butt shot of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in what looked like a bikini under a short...short...short dress. That's' Bay for you...no respect for the young ladies.
As far as sexual stuff in the movie this third installment was much more toned down than the second movie and about on par with the first. Sam Whitwicky's (Shai Lebouf) mother is, once again, a perverted loud mouth who has to make her opinion known. She is not in the movie much, so she is forgotten soon after her parts.
The movie is filled with technological advancements and the latest real world computers and vehicles. In fact, what my cousin said about the advertising in this movie was spot on. This movie was almost a two and a half hour long commercial for cool cars, Chevy, and Lenovo. Multiple times throughout the movie the camera pans in on the back of computers with the name LENOVO stretched across the screen in the foreground...out of focus just enough, but still OBVIOUSLY a badly placed advertisement enticing us to go out and by a new Lenovo computer after the movie is over. The same thing happens with the Chevy, GMC, and Mercedes emblems numerous times. But, that shouldn't be a surprise because the Transformers take on the disguises of modern day vehicles to fit in. After all, Bumble Bee, one of the main Autobots, is a Chevy Camero. This whole franchise has been one big hot spot for Chevy from the beginning for this reason. However, what did surprise me was Waste Management.
While tearing through the very heart of downtown Chicago we get multiple up close shots of Waste Management's dumpsters and garbage trucks. A few of them are trampled during the war between the Autobots, our military, and Decepticons.
With all the advertisement it was hard to stay focused. I admit, I was on the lookout for "secret commercials" after the discussion with my cousin, but the amount of commercialization in this movie was noticeable anyway. It made it hard to take the movie seriously and I felt much more disconnected from the characters than in the first Transformers movie.
Oh and I did mention Chicago.....there is no way I can go without writing about that. So often we see cities get destroyed and rampaged by war, aliens, terrorists, robots, superheros and villains, etc. It is no big deal and adds for realism. Most of us are not from those cities so we often don't even think about it. However, I am from the Chicago-land area and I know the city well. So, this time around all of the urban devastation hit home. I have been around and in so many of the buildings that were turned to rubble and it was so surreal. What must it have been like for the people who who actually live in these buildings while they were watching this movie? Must have been strange. My uncle has actually installed cabinets in an apartment in one of the two buildings of Marina City, the two twin towers on the Chicago River.
I did very much appreciate HOW the city of Chicago was shot. Movies like to generalize and show us well known landmarks...like the Statue of Liberty...or Chicago's Navy Pier...but this movie showed us streets and angles of the city you would only recognize if you had been there before. I appreciate that level of a personal experience it gave the audience with Chicago. While it did not subject us to one devastated landmark after another...like Independence Day or any other cliche 90's scifi flick, it did bring in the Wrigley Building, Hotel 71, 35 East Whacker Dr, Trump Tower and Willis Tower (Sear Tower).
Being from Chicago and as an admirer of its architecture I certainly did not mind this. Another reason this was acceptable was the sky diving and wing suit action...which was actually REAL footage of stunt men jumping with the suites. They actually jumped off of these buildings in real life for the sky diving scenes. A link at the bottom of this blog will show you what the scene looked like in real life before special effects. Any other well known places were purely background, save for one: Lincoln Memorial. Megatron actually blasts Abraham Lincoln off of his thrown and takes a seat.
The robot action was alright. We had our usual Autobots, with one or two new bots added somewhere between the second movie and this one, and a whole army of Decepticons. It was difficult to see what was happening in some of the fights as twisting turning metal flied across the screen...but it wasn't overwhelming. The robots bled too, something I didn't notice in the first two movies. It added to the fight scenes.
One thing I thought was goofy was how scratched up the Transformers were in their humanoid form and when they would transform into their car form their paint was flawless and they were beautiful machines. They'd transform again into their humanoid form and all the sudden their paint was scratched again...even before any fights. It was like when a cartoon character gets blown up and in the next scene he is fine...and in the same clothes he was blown up in...but that is okay...it added to detail and made them look more hardcore while they were on two legs and when they were rolling down the highway they glistened.
(SPOILER ALERT) One of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime, who was salvaged from the crashed Autobot spaceship on the dark side of the moon (hence the title) and who turned out to be a traitor , was voiced by Leonard Nemoy! I thought that was cool. Nemoy did a swell job and his voice fits well for a wise old Autobot/Decepticon wanna be. Something I thought was clever is how they slipped in a "word cameo" (a new term I just came up with to describe a famous line from one movie showing up in another) where Nemoy's character says, "The needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few." This was a line Nemoy's Star Trek character, Spock, used in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So, I enjoyed that and wondered how many other people caught it.
Another important thing, which as a conservative, was a pleasant surprise, was a couple of what seemed to be pro-Republican/conservative themes Sam Whitwicky is looking for a job and in one interview he explains he was given a medal from the President. The interviewer asked if it was "Obama". When Sam said yes the interviewer explained that most of the people there were Republicans. Later, Bill O'reilly made a cameo appearance in a manner that only made him look good.
The last thing I noticed at the end. While a wounded but proud Optimus Prime was giving a speech about defending the Earth we see shots of Bumble Bee stoically standing in front of a war tattered American flag flapping gracefully in the wind. It made for a patriotic end and an end to the movie which gained my respect.
Now on a deeper note, I do think there is a message in this movie. As one review I read clearly points out, the Presidential Administration is clearly established as the Obama Administration in this movie. During the movie the government quickly dispels the Autobots after threats by the Deceptions and quickly hands America over to the enemy. Megatron, one of the main villains, destroys the Lincoln statue at the Lincoln memorial and sets his-self in Lincolns throne, as if to make a declaration that he has prevailed. But, in the end, the good guys win and the American flag flaps proud in the wind behind our heroes, while Optimus' speech speaks about days when our allies turn against us and wars will come....but with an overtone of hope and victory in the end. America is in a hard time. Our government continues to fail us and many of us feel like we have been betrayed. We seem to be losing any hope of recovery in this country and we need a hero to help us out of this mess. I am glad to know someone with the power to bring issues to light in front of millions of Americans is working in Hollywood, even if I do disagree with some of his movie making.
Don't forget to watch the wingsuite special below:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
http://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?p=transformers+3+wingsuit
