Throwback Thursday Review: 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'

Today I'm continuing my series of Transformers reviews leading up to this year's Transformers: The Last Knight with my thoughts on Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I'll take a break till June before I cover Transformers: Age of Extinction. Next week I'll review Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, followed by Spider-Man 3 and Despicable Me the next two Thursdays. Reviews you can find in the meantime include a Triple-R of Guardians of the Galaxy and new reviews of The Circle, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Other reviews that may crop up are The Boss Baby, The Zookeeper's Wife, Going in Style, and Free Fire.

'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' Review

Nominated For: Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, and Best Sound Mixing.

In Transformers: Dark of the Moon the war between Autobots and Deceptions rages on! The opening prologue of Dark of the Moon reveals there was more than met the eye to the '60s space race. International government agencies hid the truth that an Autobot ship was found on the dark side of the moon housing Sentinel Prime and a device with the potential to save Cybertron. Cut to present day, and the Deceptions are scheming in the shadows to retrieve this artifact and revive Cybertron with the Autobots hot in pursuit. Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky has completed college and is having difficulties not only finding a job but adjusting to a complacent lifestyle. On the bright side, he has a new unrealistically attractive girlfriend to sub out for Megan Fox's departure! Anyways, Witwicky once again finds himself drawn towards the conflict in typical Transformers fashion that culminates to an all-out bot brawl in Chicago.

Michael Bay's back in the director's chair and thankfully his trademarks are tempered this time about. Yes, there's still blatant over-sexualized shots of attractive women and explosions galore but the eye-rolling crude humor and Bay-isms come in smaller doses and are much more restrained in comparison to Transformers and Revenge of the Fallen. Bay's more than game to capture epic action sequences featuring slo-mo to boot! In collaboration with his technical crew, Bay successfully ups the ante on delivering remarkable robo-rumbles. So hats off to cinematographer Amir Mokiri and the vfx and sound departments! I also found it to be a breath of fresh air that Dark of the Moon wasn't so reliant on a rocking soundtrack and that Steve Jablonsky composed an epic auditory atmosphere to surround the raging robots amidst their fervent fight.

Dark of the Moon also extended its arms to allow Ehren Kruger to step up and headline the script solo this time around. Kruger managed to make the human drama more engaging this time around by fleshing out Sam's character and granting him a fulfilling character arc that built upon his journey thus far (do remember this is a Transformers movie though, so it's not that radical).

In previous Transformers outings I never quite cared about the human characters the way I should, but Dark of the Moon course-corrects that issue by zeroing in on the characters you've invested in and restricting screen time for those you'd rather not see. Dark of the Moon could have scraped by with a tighter running time by condensing certain sequences and removing extraneous material but the two and half hour runtime isn't dreadful to sit through.

As for the performances, Shia LaBeouf goes out on a high note since he seems more committed and serious this time around (largely due to the shift in the way the character was written). Rosie Huntington-Whiteley does a fine job for a model by being more than just a pretty face, most of the criticisms towards her acting is probably a result of Bay's direction and not so much her performance. Huntington-Whiteley fills the Megan Fox void well and I'd even go as far to say she was better in comparison. I've got to say that the chemistry between LeBouf and Huntington-Whiteley felt far more convincing for some reason, even if the relationship seemed just as unrealistic.

Elsewhere, Patrick Dempsey chews the scenery as the reverse Witwicky, a human allied with the Deceptions, making him an interesting opposing force for Sam to go up against. Familiar faces include Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as their respective soldiers with Kevin Dunn and Julie White back for one last stint as Sam's obnoxious parents (relegated to cameo appearances this time).

Peter Cullen, Robert Foxworth, Jess Harnell, Hugo Weaving, and Charlie Adler are all back voicing Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Ironhide, Megatron, and Starscream respectively while Leonard Nimoy entered the fray as Sentinel Prime. Once again, the voice acting's great but that element of the franchise has never been lacking so it's no surprise that it works again. Frances McDormand, John Turturro, Alan Tudyk, John Malkovich, and Ken Jeong each get silly supporting bits and each have a memorable moment or two that will leave you laughing but are relegated to the comic schtick.

A strong case can be made that Dark of the Moon spotlights the best action sequences and story beats of the franchise as it's the only Transformers film aside from the first to truly entertain me. Dark of the Moon strikes a fine balance of delivering a sufficient story vessel to justify the grand spectacle and dictating that its action is driven by the needs of the story and its characters. That's not to say that Dark of the Moon was revolutionary for blockbusters, it doesn't even come close, but it does stand as a significant improvement to the franchise in my eyes that only gets scrapped back to square one in the subsequent entry. Dark of the Moon has its fair share of problems but succeeded in the vain of being the popcorn entertainment it set out to be, so I can't help but validate that!