10 Reasons to see Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

The latest Transformers movie has been critically panned from virtually every corner. Danny Leigh off that BBC show with Claudia Winkleface is even calling for strike action to boycott the movie in The Guardian and thus send a message to studio execs. But outside elite film critics there must still be a demand for Michael Bay’s franchise. And I bet those of you that are glass half full kind of people, are crying out for some positivity. Wail no more optimistic readers.

1)      Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is based on a pretty sound and promising premise. It draws on one of the most historic moments in human civilization, the 1969 moon landing, to give a story about toys some narrative heft for the adults. The space race, we discover, was not just a competitive dash to the stars but a sprint for the wreckage of an Autobot ship, containing some alien tech with Godlike powers. But hang on the astronauts look round for a bit and then come home again rather uneventfully…

Aside from the idea there’s the title itself. I mean it’s pretty damn cool to make a film with the same name as a legendary Pink Floyd album! Oh wait, there’s a word missing. But they say Dark Side of the Moon in the movie? Maybe Michael Bay (or some lawyers) decided it was snappier to drop a word.

2)      Or perhaps no one wanted to limit this film to just the one “side”. There are at least three sides available because Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is out in 3D. In fact with the juggernaut of 3D films slowing, its supporters in the industry are said to be pinning their hopes on Bay’s blockbuster because his trademark CGI pyrotechnics look stunning via the magic shades. I saw it in 2D because I wasn’t keen on paying more for a film I didn’t really want to endure. But let’s stick with the positives.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen makes a case for being one of the worst films of all time. I haven’t even seen it (mostly because of the sheer force of the derision) but you know a film is bad when its director and star use words like “shit” and “crap” just seconds after they are no longer contractually obliged to promote it. The original Transformers was surprisingly good though and critical consensus is that this is substantially better than the sequel. The downside for Michael “Boom-Bang-Bam” Bay is that most reviewers are merely saying Transformers 3 is better to illustrate how atrociously bad the second instalment was.

3)      Damn I said I would stick with the positives didn’t I? Well there are always two big ticks alongside Michael Bay’s name. He is consistent and he always provides plenty of bangs for your buck. I saw the first Transformers by accident all those years ago and I was won over primarily by Bay’s competent handling of stuff frequently exploding into thousands of shards of glass and chunks of concrete. In Transformers 3, if you stick with it for over an hour, you get to see Chicago flattened. In one scene the human characters slide through a skyscraper as it collapses. Then they slide through it again. Then more stuff blows up. Then some more. Then there’s some slow mo. And a bit more. Something else goes bang. You lose interest.

4)      Alright there are some negatives. Like the constantly annoying and yelping Shia LaBeouf.

5)      But surely these are more than outweighed by the presence of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley? It was a big ask to find someone to replace Megan Fox’s assets but British lingerie model Rosie was named FHM’s sexiest woman of 2011. Physically she easily fills the implausibly hot girlfriend role. Bay knows he’s working with a thing of beauty, panning the camera down her body in the middle of action sequences.

Unfortunately her performance has been chewed, swallowed, digested and vomited onto a pile of steaming fresh elephant dung by every single critic. Surprisingly I thought her acting was worse when she was simply required to scream. We see her getting dressed from behind briefly at one point and in a couple of revealing dresses but not sufficiently unclothed to warrant the price of admission. Having said that Bay does his best to reduce every single female extra to eye candy by ordering them to strut about or look scared in something short.

6)      On the plus side! John Malkovich appears in what might be a mildly amusing but pointless cameo in a film that was at least an hour shorter.

7)      Ken Jeong also shows up as essentially his character from The Hangover, minus any of the sometimes funny rudeness. He is vital to one of the many baffling and needless sub plots. Which leads me to reason number eight…

8)      A glorious two and a half hour runtime may make any of the microscopically good things in this film meaningless but it has its beneficial effects as a sedative. You’ll be capable of falling into a sleep so deep that a succession of nuclear wars wouldn’t wake you after Bay has left you numbed and extremely bored by repetitive scenes of endless destruction.

9)      Actually there aren’t even 10 fake reasons to see it.

I have completely failed to live up to my nickname of Optimist Prime…

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Let’s be clear from the start that Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is not a great or even good movie experience. It spends 133 minutes undecided as to what type of film it wants to be. As a result it’s a largely dull tale that takes time to get going and never really bursts into life as you might expect. I’ve never seen the original Wall Street and honestly couldn’t say if seeing the first film would enhance or diminish your enjoyment of this post-9/11 and banking bailout sequel. Certainly a fan would have got some of the references that left me unmoved, perhaps a cameo from Charlie Sheen’s wax work face would have made more sense, but they ultimately may have been disappointed by the nothingness of this follow-up.

The cinema was strangely empty for the first night of a film jammed with star performances and lavish shots of the Manhattan skyline, all marshalled by acclaimed director Oliver Stone. It was dotted with the odd couple who may have been young when the first movie came out. Indeed at times Stone’s direction felt dated, with nostalgic fades between scenes and a less than subtle focus on the image of bubbles throughout the film. You can spot a bubble billowing child in the background of almost every scene with a crowd. Much of what really grated about this movie, besides the ponderous plot, was the way in which motifs and messages were rammed down your throat. These ideas are never fully developed or explored, for instance the focus on renewable energy that seemed to be thrown in simply to be topical, and are far from intelligent or insightful. What really makes you shift uncomfortably in your seat is the way in which the script makes it plain, through some at times terribly clunky dialogue, that it thinks it is saying something clever and new that needs to be said. In reality it merely scratches the surface of some big themes from recent times and then quickly ties itself up in knots with another strand of the purposeless plot that rarely engages the audience.

The opening titles also felt dated and these informed me that there were original songs on the soundtrack, which also sounded distinctly 80s and not exactly in keeping with the tone throughout. However for all the film’s faults it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes it such a lifeless watch but easier to highlight the aspects that make it more bearable than expected.

The first surprise (I was tempted to say pleasant but it really wasn’t) was the way in which I could tolerate so much screen time from Shia “dollar signs” LaBeouf. Since his childhood role in Even Stevens, in which he was passably amusing, I have found his acting irritating in every major film that has catapulted him to mega-bucks star status. However in this movie, despite being given some terrible lines, he is watchable not only as the young adult trader with a conscience but also as the infatuated lover struggling to keep his relationship together. The object of his affection, Carey Mulligan, was also a strong point of a poor film, as expected. Here she demonstrates an American accent and short haired sex appeal that might see her cast in more big budget projects across the Atlantic, but I would hope she tries to stick to quality British film in the main.  

In fact if Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps gets one big review tick it is for the acting performances. Michael Douglas, despite looking drained even after his transformation at the end of the film, has an undeniable charisma in the role of Gordon Gekko and again this is despite the fact he is given some appalling dialogue to work with. The film, whilst continuously slow and plodding, feels even more so before Douglas makes his first proper appearance. The reconciliation scene with his daughter Mulligan is also the one genuinely moving and engaging moment in the entire movie, which is a real testament to both performers given how little I cared for the back-story. Josh Brolin also plays the big baddie banker extremely well.

So whilst there’s no need to rush out to see a film with an identity crisis that can feel like that annoying high minded acquaintance who doesn’t really have an opinion of their own, there are worse ways of spending two hours thanks to some quality acting and the beautiful, shiny gloss of extreme wealth present in every escapist scene.