2. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011)
“The Autobots learn of a Cybertronian spacecraft hidden on the moon, and the race against the Decepticons to reach it and to learn its secrets”
I was overexcited and so hyped for Transformers Dark of the Moon to come out in the Summer of 2011. I remember when the teaser trailer dropped in December 2010, I stayed up into the early hours of the morning for the thirty second "big game" spot to air during Super Bowl XLV (the game that got me into the NFL, pre-game I chose to support the Packers - and they won!), watched the theatrical trailer on repeat as well as almost all subsequent TV spots leading up to release. I purchased the film's score, the soundtrack, tie-in comics - I was obsessed. I was more excited for the film's release date than I was for my school prom night, which fell on the same day (I neither attended my prom nor saw the film on release date in the end, though I did see it two days later - on its original release date of July 1st). I saw it in cinemas twice, first time in 3D, second time in IMAX 3D, which really was an incredible experience.
It is clear that Michael Bay, who at the time said this would be his last Transformers film, still had some passion for this franchise. The story, while not perfect, is not nonsensical and, in my opinion, there are no stand out annoying characters. Some goofy, slapstick humour still exists but tonally Dark of the Moon feels like it takes itself more serious than the other films.
The score by Steve Jablonsky is once again beautiful, the action set pieces are exciting and they even tried giving the robot cast more personality, particularly with their relationships to other characters; Optimus and his mentor Sentinel Prime, Bumblebee and Sam.
The action set pieces are incredibly exciting, particularly the highway chase that occurs around the 1 hour mark. Despite this, the final battle that takes up the last act of the film feels more like a sequence of individual events, "this happens, then this happens, then this happens". I often compare this to The Avengers (Joss Whedon, 2012), where there is also a final battle at the end of the film in a big city, involving numerous heroes taking on waves of drone-like enemies. However, the way this battle is filmed and structured feels more like a battle that progresses, "this happens, whilst this happens, therefore this happens".
It is not an intellectually challenging film, nor is it a modern classic. It is a summer blockbuster, mindless action movie that, though it ends rather abruptly, is a satisfying end to one of my favourite guilty pleasure film trilogies - as far as I'm concerned, 4 and 5 are fever dreams that never happened canonically.
