"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" (2011) is a Total Ducking Fisaster

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) is total shit. You might enjoy shit. But it's shit nonetheless.

I'm so sick of frenetic directors with $200 million and no shame stealing my paychecks with misogynist, poorly-exposited drivel like this, and for everybody to go easy on it because it's made some improvements over the previous two installments in the series (generally in the special-effects department). They've had three chances to make an enjoyable film out of giant sentient warring robots, which by rights should've been a piece of cake, and they've failed spectacularly three times. But I suppose if your captor has shoved your face in scat twice, and on the third time, he's gone and picked out the bones for you, you're liable to thank your captor for his courtesy.

This film is total garbage. A total ducking fisaster. Admitted merits in the first two, but this was their third try at getting this shit right, and I'm done with mercy. And you know what? They'll cash my resentment for $150 million by the end of the weekend, so who cares if I rant a little?

To begin: Sam Witwicky is the World's Worst Protagonist. Merely annoying in the first two films, he's now graduated to true-blue asshole, attacking his girlfriend for being friendly with her boss, who Sam sees as more attractive, charming, and rich than he is. You stay classy, Witwhatever.

The script spends a good portion of the first act trailing Sam as he desperately searches for a job, in an attempt at what I'm sure is supposed to be "timeliness," but his search looks so nothing like any real job-search I've ever seen that I found it impossible to relate. His ridiculous parents are back in full force, and while they're not as pot-brownie ridiculous as in previous installments, they still only manage to induce cringes at every turn.

Have I stalled long enough? Let's talk about Michael Bay's views on women. In this film, there are only two kinds: shrewy, harpy bitches, and hot supermodel babes. I imagine this is how Michael Bay might actually see the world, divided up into the women who will sleep with him, and those who won't. The very first shot of the film (after the expositiony prologue) is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's sashaying butt.

It's morning, and hot girls don't wear pants in the morning, see.

Mikaela Banes's (Megan Fox) absence is explained in a few curt lines at the actress's expense. Something about her being "a mean bitch" who heartlessly dumped Sam. I happen to be a big fan of Fox, who has nothing but intelligent things to say in interviews, and the idea that she got fired for a little hyperbole regarding Bay's directorial style (she called him Hitler), while Shia LeBeouf shoots his mouth off in every gorram interview and still cashes checks like a boss reeks of industry sexism.

The other women with speaking roles include Agent Mearing (Frances McDormand), who is introduced into the film while talking on a cell phone, conveniently explaining exactly what her job entails to some nameless extra, which is easily the film's most shameless example of naked exposition, Sam Witwicky's aforementioned mother, and a bunch of nameless hotties working in Sam's office.

That's right, Sam can work with hotties, but his girlfriend can't.

Moving right along, we come to Michael Bay's treatment of minorities. Now, I'm not one to claim that Bay is actually racist for the things he puts into his movies (the gold-toothed, illiterate, break-dancing, prognathous-featured Skids and Mudflap come to mind). No, I'm more pissed that he tries to turn his racial generalizations into jokes, which are simply not funny.

So the one asian in the film is a socially-awkward nerd. That alone wouldn't incur my wrath, but apparently it's supposed to be the bedrock of a really funny joke. Same with the big, muscular black dude who is supposed to be adorably self-interested, but ultimately just really, really brave.

To be fair, in my screening, I and the two people who were with me were the only white people in the theater, and the other people in the theater were the ones who laughed at the black racial stereotypes the most.

But somehow I don't think that Michael Bay has perfectly captured the black American zeitgeist.

Enough about politics. How does the film hold up as a film?

Not in any way that I find encouraging. The plot is more straightforward than the previous entry in the franchise, in that you always know what people are doing, but rarely do we know why. The stakes are very poorly defined, the character motivations even less-so. It basically just boils down to "What the brightly-colored robots are doing is good, and what the drab-colored ones are doing is bad." Subsequently, I cared about shit.

I suppose the franchise-planners thought they were injecting some new energy into the series by making some of the humans secretly work for the Decepticons this time around, but the betrayals are so lame-brained that whatever surprises they might have contained are completely wasted. Spoiler alert: Sam's girlfriend's boss is not only a tool, he's also a Decepticon!

The movie made me feel something (good) precisely once. Bumblebee is captured by the Decepticons late in the third act and, as Sam watches helplessly, they prepare to execute the poor bot with a massive shot to the back of the head. That was the one moment of tension/drama/suspense in the whole gorram picture. I count it as no small coincidence that the only character in the film I wound up liking can't actually speak.

Well, I mean, I generally love Optimus Prime, too. But it's not a 157 minute movie about him.

That's the thing: I love me some big slow-motion robot-on-robot violence, especially when it's supposed to represent the immemorial struggle between good versus evil. But the Michael Bay Transformers trilogy tried to needlessly add on to an idea that already got me through the door. Several botched acts and a thousand stupid jokes later, I'm done giving him chances.

Someone on IMDB.com called this movie a "redefining of the sci-fi genre." I have but one response to that.

--Serge

PS: The final act of the film takes place entirely within my favorite adopted city, Chicago. I wondered what effect this would have on me, and the way in which I experienced the film. Turns out, I enjoyed every minute of seeing Chicago on the big screen, and in fact, I felt more emotion while watching my city being destroyed with CGI than when any particular character was in jeopardy. Fail.