We’ve all heard our fair share of moon landing conspiracy theories…but are you ready for one more?
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the third instalment in the Transformers series. I won’t say ‘trilogy’ because that’s not really appropriate as they’re all basically the same. Having said that I love them, they’re absolutely stunning looking films. I was a die-hard Transformers fan as a kid, so it’s a joy to see them realized on the big screen. I understand not everyone feels like this…Let’s be clear about something, it’s not about the story, its not about the dialogue, it’s not even about the actors. It’s all about the robots.
Shia LaBoeuf reprises his role as Sam Witwicky, and Megan Fox’s character Mikaela Banes is replaced by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley playing new love interest Carly Spencer. It’s no great surprise that Megan Fox isn’t in the third film due to the rumours and accusations around her relationship to director Michael Bay, including her allegedly comparing him to Adolf Hitler. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is her replacement, there are lots of very cruel jokes around, about her acting ability, but I wonder about the kind of person that gores to see a film about giant robots hoping for some kind of Meryl Streep style Oscar performance. On the other hand Coen Brother regulars, Frances McDormand and John Turturro are both excellent here, and there’s even a nice villainous role for Patrick Dempsey – so it’s not all bad news.
To put it bluntly the robots are the stars, and they look fantastic. This is the first film in the franchise that’s been filmed in 3D and it makes full use of the technology. Previous Transformers films suffered from special effects that were literally too much for the eye to take in. The intricate transformation of the robots and the extreme fight scenes looked almost like a blur as the audience struggled to make out what they could from the explosion of CGI on the screen. Bay has gotten past this and Dark of the Moon features some of the best CGI you’ll see this summer, helped in no small part by Steven Spielberg I should imagine.
The story is that in 1961 during the war between the Autobots and Decepticons a spacecraft called the Ark crash landed on our moon. It was carrying technology that would have ended the war on Cybertron and the Decepticons too. It is this crash landing that throws the US and Russia into the space race, as the two countries try to get to the moon first and investigate the spacecraft. As conspiracy theories go it’s not too bad – the Chernobyl disaster, it turns out, was also caused by these pesky robots. The rest of the story is as you would imagine, but rest assured there are numerous inventive and jaw dropping robot fight sequences, and in your face 3D set pieces that will have you tossing you popcorn in the air. If you like robots, and you fancy some mindless spectacle then you’ll like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, if not – you won’t. It’s as simple as that.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon is out now
Warren Beckett works full time as a powerful wizard, but moonlights as an online journalist. He likes talking in the third person. For frequent updates on how his hair looks follow his Twitter @WarrenBeckett