This is without a doubt the worst movie I've ever paid to see, bar none. Everything that could be done wrong is done wrong, almost everything that could have gone right was botched, and it doesn't even have the campy charm of a truly bad film. It's so mediocre it transcends the boundaries of shit. I could go point by point for over a page on all the totally mind-blowingly stupid scenes and plot elements, but that's pointless. It's a trainwreck and I want my money back.
Except I have to mention one thing, which was the icing on the turd-cake. The Decepticons warp Cybertron into low earth orbit, Bumblebee tackles a warp pylon and destroys it and suddenly Cybertron implodes. Yes, the entire cunning plot not only failed, but backfired and inexplicably destroyed their whole planet because of a tackle.Think about that shit. Just... eh
Ok, now that I've had time to think about the film, and the films as a whole...big nerd rant:
The main thing with these movies (from a huge fan of the franchise) is that neither of the sequels were able to live up to what the first movie set in motion. The first film, to me, was a perfect compromise of taking a franchise like Transformers and playing with the elements to craft a movie that appealed to both fans and mainstream folk. It was a great starting point. In the first film, you had to have an emphasis on human characters to tie the mainstream audience into it. They could relate to them, and thus be introduced to the Transformers and their world through the human characters' eyes. Certain elements that don't translate well to the big screen were retooled or left out. It was a movie that established a new continuity.
At that point they could've shifted the focus more and more to the actual stars of the franchise, the Transformers themselves, while still having the human element involved. With every film, you see a little bit more, but never all the way. Instead, the robots are left with little characterization, little development, and a lot of fans fool themselves into saying "yeah, well Starscream got a lot more character development this time" simply because he had a few lines.
The reality is, I don't think Bay ever really cared for the Transformers and didn't think of the original property as more than a "silly toy movie." It's known that he didn't want to do the movie to begin with, and it wasn't until Spielberg and Hasbro convinced him that he signed on. I think he honestly thought he was upgrading the franchise and making it better by incorporating all these elements that weren't needed. Hot chicks, massive explosions at every turn, inappropriate humor...all of these things were put in, in his eye,s to "make it better." In reality, there is a ton of interesting mythology, characters and storylines from both the cartoon and comics that have kept the franchise afloat that carry a lot of weight that could've been drawn from. The comics in particular, where the characters and stories were really allowed to grow. You can still take big transforming robots and have real emotion and consequences involved in their stories, without having to inject human characters for the sake of the mainstream audience. These movies could still have action, still have crazy cg, and have been fun action movies in the same vein as Iron Man instead of the polarizing films that they are.
While this third film was entertaining and a fun action movie in it's own right, as a fan, I can't help but feel that they dropped the ball again. While these movies have made a ton of money, the franchise deserves better than to be forever remembered as that big dumb action movie. I applaud Bay for keeping the franchise alive, and making it more popular than ever. But now that he's leaving it, I'd like to see someone take the helm and do it right.
So why'd you go see it if you hate Transformers so much?
Because I'm a professional blogger, and one of the things I do on my blog is nerdy movie reviews. It was my job to see Transformers 3.
Then why don't you go get another job then?
Because the economy sucks and because even if Transformers 3 sucks, watching it is still a hell of a lot better than digging ditches for a living.
Who cares if the plot sucks? It's an action movie!
I care. As it turns out, I prefer it when my movies have good action scenes and a decent plot. I'm greedy that way.
Why are you bitching that the Transformers movie is stupid when the original cartoon is just as stupid?
Because the '80s Transformers cartoon didn't have a $300 million budget and wasn't supposed to appeal to millions of viewers of many ages in several countries. I think having slightly higher standards for the live-action movie is pretty reasonable.
Do you really expect a great story from a movie based on a toy cartoon?
No. But a decent story? A so-so story? A story that isn't relentlessly stupid? Yeah, I think I'd like that.
Who cares if it's dumb? This movie is for kids!
I think the lingering shots of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley's almost bare ass and the incredibly graphic violence indicate the movie is not solely for kids. And as it turns out, it is legal to have a non-ludicrously dumb plot, characterizations instead of accents, and even mediocre acting in kids movies sometimes. I looked it up.
Do you expect TF3 to be Citizen Kane? It's a turn-off-your-brain summer popcorn flick!
Of course not. But there's a pretty wide range between your standard summer fare and Citizen Kane, and just because I don't want my movie to be so stupid that I can't stop thinking about how dumb it is doesn't mean I need it to be some art house flick. Here's a summer popcorn flick for you: Thor. Was Thor dumb? No, but it wasn't smart. And it wasn't so dumb I was too distracted by horrible plot holes to enjoy the movie. I like not-smart movies. Love 'em, in fact. I don't need all movies to be as clever as Citizen Kane. I just need them to not be insanely stupid.
Why can't you just enjoy the spectacle, man?
Because spectacle is infinitely more spectacular if it's part of a story that makes a modicum of sense and characters that I give the tiniest shit about.
I almost went to go see this tonight but I didn't realize that theaters in LA have seat reservations. And literally all of that upper 99% was taken. ugh.
Probably for the best though. IMAX 3D is like $20.
? Wait, did you not see Revenge of the Fallen? Or perhaps you simply didn't pay to see Revenge of the Fallen? (on HBO, or at a friend's house)
I didn't pay to see it, but I still think it's a superior film. It wasn't a nonstop action marathon, so scenes could stand on their own and be memorable. The forest fight, Devastator forming, the Fallen lifting pyramid blocks, and some other small scenes all made for memorable action sequences involving the transformers.
TF3's best action sequences were... I can barely remember? It was all a huge nonstop blur of poorly choreographed robot melees between autobots and those aliens from Crysis 2. The only scenes that stood out were two sequences with humans, being the wingsuit scene (very cool actually) and the insanely retarded falling building sequence. There was no "wow" moment in the entire film involving transformers, which is absurd considering the CGI was terrific. Bay pumped everything up to 11 for the entire second half of the film, and consequently your brain turns off and you can't even be bothered to care. He made robots boring for me. ME! Giant robots are all I've wanted to see in a blockbuster for years, and Bay massacred it for 3 straight movies.
But really the thing that made me most angry and totally destroyed the film for me was that as the Chicago battle went on the amount of relentlessly stupid things that happened just piled up one on top of the other into an unparalleled marathon of bullshit. I don't think any other film has insulted my intelligence that much, that quickly. I'm all for mindless blockbusters (I enjoyed Thor, Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia, for example), but I assume that mindless means "minimal plot" not "idiotic plot with holes the size of Bay's ego".
But really the thing that made me most angry and totally destroyed the film for me was that as the Chicago battle went on the amount of relentlessly stupid things that happened just piled up one on top of the other into an unparalleled marathon of bullshit. I don't think any other film has insulted my intelligence that much, that quickly. I'm all for mindless blockbusters (I enjoyed Thor, Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia, for example), but I assume that mindless means "minimal plot" not "idiotic plot with holes the size of Bay's ego".
Preaching to the choir. I wanted to fall asleep during most of the Chicago sequence, but it was so loud and I simply didn't care about what was happening in the movie anymore.
I can't believe what I'm hearing! Some of you actually PREFER Revenge of the Fallen? And your only explanation is that the Chicago battle was too long?!
It wasn't a nonstop action marathon, so scenes could stand on their own and be memorable. The forest fight, Devastator forming, the Fallen lifting pyramid blocks, and some other small scenes all made for memorable action sequences involving the transformers.
Of the scenes you list here are just special-effects money shots. And every single one of them is punctuated by inane idiocy. That was one of my biggest issues with RotF.
Micheal Bay movies need to space the idiocy out properly, and they need to tone it to the degree that it doesn't distract from the special effects, action, and explosions. That way the viewer is able to slip into the Bay-trance, switch their brain off, and derive some level of enjoyment from the film. Transformers 2 was so mind-blowingly idiotic, so frequently, that the sheer awfulness of what was being presented would jar me out of my Bay-trance, and spoil my enjoyment of the film.
Case in point, the scene of Devastator forming is totally sweet. Seven robots combine in a protracted orgy of CGI special effects. What is the first thing they do immediately after having Devastator complete? They have him fight the Twins. And to add insult to injury, this mechanical monstrosity doesn't even manage to kill one of the little bastards.
The Optimus fight in the forest was better than most of the other fights up to that point. But even that made no sense! All of the other Transformers simply vanish while Optimus Prime is getting ganged up on. And even though supposedly "only a Prime can kill a Prime," Megatron ends the fight abruptly by cheap-shotting Optimus through the back. And on top of all this mess, we have to put up with Shia LeBouf screaming Optimus over and over again while the rest of the Transformers suddenly show up.
Revenge of the Fallen spoiled its own best moments over and over again. Though far from a good film, at least Transformers 3 manages to maintain a certain level of cohesion. They keep the idiocy infrequent and unobtrusive enough not to break the flow.
I can't believe what I'm hearing! Some of you actually PREFER Revenge of the Fallen? And your only explanation is that the Chicago battle was too long?!
No, it's that it was long, boring, terribly, choerographed, edited, written, and relentlessly tried to sabotage itself. And succeeded!
Of the scenes you list here are just special-effects money shots. And every single one of them is punctuated by inane idiocy. That was one of my biggest issues with RotF.
If I have to eat shit, I'd rather eat it with cake than with more shit. RotF was full of bullshit, but it managed to transcend it and finish on some sort of decent note. DotM had less bullshit, but concentrated almost all of it in one big giant clusterfuck right at the end.
The Optimus fight in the forest was better than most of the other fights up to that point. But even that made no sense! All of the other Transformers simply vanish while Optimus Prime is getting ganged up on. And even though supposedly "only a Prime can kill a Prime," Megatron ends the fight abruptly by cheap-shotting Optimus through the back. And on top of all this mess, we have to put up with Shia LeBouf screaming Optimus over and over again while the rest of the Transformers suddenly show up.
1) Shia LeBouf can't come up in these conversations, because he was equally annoying in all of the movies.
2) The fight made little sense, but it was cool. The transformer vs transformer fights in DotM made more sense, but weren't cool at all (with exception of Sentinels last fight, but by then my brain was frying anyways). Transformers had crappy fight choreography in general, which is why the forest fight stood out, since it was a fairly strong showing.
They keep the idiocy infrequent and unobtrusive enough not to break the flow.
Ha, no. Horrific cliches, plot holes everywhere, completely nonsensical sequence of events, stupid plot which both makes the previous film irrelevant and also sabotages the ending of this one, hamfisted cgi usage and misdirected concepts in general, horrible resolution of transformer rivalries, and lets not even talk about Cybertron.
Nerd-ON
Almost every good scene was marred by a horrifically stupid moment, or sequence of moments
-The falling building scene: The best solution anyone can think of when being attacked is to jump out of a building which is still near vertical, and only tips to allow them to live as they're sliding to their deaths. Absurd, and totally in line with Bay's "do stupid shit and justify it as you go" style.
-The Starscream fight had one of the lead Decepticons stabbed in both eyes, flailing like a B movie villain shouting "MY EYES!" and then dying when his head explodes. I'm not sure I've seen a less dignified death on film.
-Megatron's big intro is him transforming to robot mode from the Truck straight out of The Road Warrior, and he has a cape and a vulture pet perching on his hand.
-Sentinel's otherwise decent fight scene ends with him getting taken out by Megatron, who is then summarily dispatched by Optimus as if he wasn't the major villain for three whole movies. Then Optimus shoots Sentinel right away. An entire climax in, oh 1 minute?
-Apparently if the warp pillars fail it causes the target site to blow up. Real smooth using that on your entire homeworld.
-They were planning to bring Cybertron into earth's atmosphere, by just tugging it through hyperspace right next to earth. Not even far away, but right in low orbit. Even by Bay standards that's impossibly stupid both for how it looks, and how it would spoil the entire plan when the planets crush each other
-Optimus vs Shockwave ends with Optimus stuck in some crane cables dangling in the air like a fool, and he needs his useless robot flunkies to free him. Way to make your hero look useless and idiotic.
-The finale was painfully patriotic without saying anything directly. Truly, Bay is a talented man.
-Those two midget transformers took down the decepticon ship. Their presence alone is idiotic enough.
-Instead of killing Bumblebee and having the viewer feel something genuine for the only sympathetic autobot, they save him with more improbably bullshit.
-Everything Optimus says is borderline evil sounding. Admittedly less so than the finale of RotF, where his dialogue was full villain mode. Seriously, "Give me your face" is NOT what a hero says as he kills the bad guy.
RotF was crap, but at least it managed to round out the last 10 minutes with a solid showing without complete WTF moments. DotM self-destructed.
Michael Bay said NO to having a bare-breasted Scarlett Johansson in The Island. She wanted to do a topless love scene. He turned her down. Nothing else he does will ever be as much of a crime as that. Fuck you, michael bay.
I agree the action was rubbish in Transforms 2, but Transformers 3 had two scenes where Shia was crying his eyes out because of two oh noes scenes.
I felt nothing throughtout Transformers 3 albiet the action was good, and you could see what was going on ,but you knew what was going to happen it tried all these annoying little manipulative tricks which none of it worked because they were so cheap, the whole thing was just boring.
They flew in wings suits for about five minutes at the height of a sky scraper, I know sky scrapers arent that high nor wings suits that good. I can see some of the thinking behind it. "You know wing suits are cool I want them. I got caned for all the blatant military machine masturbations in the last film. I know lets drive up the marines recruitment, by showing how bad arse the ordinary men are this time(and I can masturbate to them as well)."
Transfomers 2 gets my vote for Micheal Bay getting Robots testicles into a mainstream film, how that got past the sane people I dont know. Transformers 2 I didnt have a clue what was going to happen.
Michael Bay said NO to having a bare-breasted Scarlett Johansson in The Island. She wanted to do a topless love scene. He turned her down. Nothing else he does will ever be as much of a crime as that. Fuck you, michael bay.
No, it's that it was long, boring, terribly, choerographed, edited, written, and relentlessly tried to sabotage itself. And succeeded!
Okay, in your spoiler section you do bring up a lot of valid complaints vis-a-vis the shortcomings of the hour-long action sequence. I noticed all of your complaints when I saw the movie, but they simply didn't jar me as much as the innumerable inconsistencies in RotF. Part of it could be that my expectations had already been drastically lowered by the previous film. Part of it could be that they managed to slap Micheal Bay's hand away from the genitalia, fart, and humping jokes. The inserted "humor" sequences were still incredibly lame in DotM, just mildly less brain-dead and offensive.
But you can't tell me that the finale of the second film was honestly better than the protracted one-on-one fight we saw in DotM? In RotF, Optimus goes Super-Saiyan and eliminates all of the major antagonists immediately. It was such a disappointing deus-ex. Not to mention the incredibly inane robot heaven that Shia LeBouf visits. And all of that was preceded by half an hour of two sweaty college-age idiots running through the desert in slow-mo with shaky-cam.
Though woefully overblown and interspersed with Micheal Bay's trademark attempts at humor, I still maintain that the ending sequence in DotM is superior to the climax of RotF. And for anyone who hasn't seen it yet and is considering it, I would strongly recommend going for the 3D option. You don't need to see it in IMAX, but make sure you go to a 3D-enabled showing. The 3D helps you to tell the various robots apart during the action sequences, which definitely improves the experience somewhat.
Also, isn't it just a little sad that we're debating over which movie was the most shitty?
This is coming from someone who was never a big fan of Transformers growing up and is normally a huge hater on shitty movies....
I enjoyed the first Transformers and I thought the second one was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I went into this one very skeptical.
The sheer epicness of the opening shot of the autobots and deceptions fighting on cybertron and the fact of how small they looked compared to their environment nearly made my brain blow out of the back of my skull. The amount of detail that was put into that one shot absolutely blew my mind. One of the coolest opening sequences I have ever seen in a film.
There were so many just absolutely amazing and complex sequences in the movie. Granted when the Beouf opened his mouth or any sort of humanoid plot was going down it was down right awful. I went into it knowing you need to look past that crap to enjoy it, and once I did I found the film thoroughly enjoying.
If you look through all the bullshit it will really make you feel like a kid again.
Actually I'd say it was Crysis 2 that was heavily inspired by the ILM Transformer designs. The police car bot in the 2007 movie, in particular, not that there's anything wrong with that.
Just got out from watching it, that shit was amazing - walking out of the cinema afterwards seemed so stale and boring in comparison.
I think I've seen enough explosions and expertly rendered metallic shrapnel and transformer bits to last me at least until the next transformers movie.
Well,
the action was pretty darn sweet. Micheal Bay certainly knows his way around explosions, that's for sure.
The romance and actual plot on the other hand was, as expected, a crock of shit. That crazy Asian guy gave me a few chuckles and John Malkovich was great though.
In the end it lived up to my (rather low) expectations- a summer blockbuster with more muscle than brain and a definite improvement over 1 and 2.
By the way, who's idea was it to cast that butterface-galore? Just look at her lips!
By the way, did you know Micheal Bay had to cut back on the more crazier stuff, because apparently filming in 3D required him to tone it down and to make things less crazy with speed, movement and such?
I liked it too. The cg stuff is great and there's a lot of awesome matte painting in it. And explosions everywhere!
I've never liked Shia or the plastic hollywood girl (so ugly I feel sorry for her)
I thought Transformers 2 was a slap in the face of good taste.
But Transformers 3, was tremendously awesome! Really enjoyed it! Was looking for a CG flying pig after a while :P The stereoscopy was also really well done. I'll probably go see it again :thumbup: (Never thought I'd be saying that about a Michael Bay film!)
I took the family yesterday. I thought it was pretty good. Best of the 3 so far. They should have cut about an hour of crap out of the movie though. I would have preferred none of the job hunting stuff, and I got really annoyed by LaBeouf's yelling.
There are also three characters that I wish had been dropped after the first movie. The parents and John Turturro. Those characters always feel forced and they put the cheese factor to a nauseating level. And the government hardass chick was annoying.
I also don't get the hate on this new 'hot' chick. I think she's hotter than Megan Fox, and I felt her acting was better too. I did get a little tired of the movie trying to tell me that she's hot. Did it really require a comment by every person that meets her for the first time?
Anyway, I know that I've said so far makes it sound like I didn't like it, but I thought the Transformers part of this was amazing. Honestly, if they had cut out all of Sam's personal life crap, the movie may have been just about perfect for me.
I would have preferred none of the job hunting stuff
I could have lived without that as well, but it didn't bother me as much as it did you.
There are also three characters that I wish had been dropped after the first movie. The parents and John Turturro.
I agree with the parents but I liked Turturro's character - made me laugh.
I also don't get the hate on this new 'hot' chick. I think she's hotter than Megan Fox, and I felt her acting was better too.
I'll definitely agree that her acting is better but I think both of them are fugly.
if they had cut out all of Sam's personal life crap, the movie may have been just about perfect for me.
I think if they had more transformers shit and less human I definitely would have liked it even more. But for me at least, it wasn't something that detracted enough away from the film to make it less enjoyable.
I actually really enjoyed the job hunting stuff. It shows that here is this kid who has saved the world 2 times over and he just can't get any damn respect. Even when his parents show up his dad treats him like shit and they know he's saved the world twice. they were there and he still acts like the kid can't get his life together. It almost felt like he had developed this hard sell tactic because of all the pressure and it served to shoot himself in the foot. I like John Turturro and absolutely loved the introduction of "Dutch." I could have done without the hard ass director lady since she only served as a launching platform of "Sam was right all along."
Spoiler-
Was she wearing the high heels at the end? Does that mean she go through all the fall throughout the building and all the city stuff at the end, to keep those high heels on? That's superwoman right there.
Fell asleep during the Chicago battle... I found this one just as bad as the other two, from the bad actors to the overwhelming fx and poor humor. I'm getting to old for this shit Oh well, at least I got Michael Bay officially blacklisted on my side. NEVER AGAIN, sir.
I wouldn't have minded the job hunting stuff so much, if he wasn't such a twat during each one. I would be fine with him talking about sharing the world, but his character is just annoying.
Ace-angel: my daughters are 14 and 18, so seeing a woman in underwear and a button up shirt, is no different than most TV ads these days. Hell, she was more covered up than most Victoria Secret ads.
I didn't find Turturro's character nearly as bad this round, but I really would be just as happy if he were not a part of the movie. The Dutch character was definitely fun though.
hahaha yea...... because seeing an entire citys worth of people get annihilated/murdered/blown up is nowhere near as bad as a near naked bum right....? heaven forbid if there was a side boob or full on titty!
I think you mistook my words, it was a jab at Micheal Bay making The Island a 'non-children' movie, but at the same time not allowing a certain actress to bare her assets, while in TF series, he toughed them as a thing for the younger generation. while still having more nudity then The Island.
The film dragged in a few places but it was okay, i wasnt wowed as the first but it played out pretty well. The childish language to save swearing pissed me off though. Lets mess this shi-p up. There bloody aweful so i tuned out when there was alot of the crappy filler dialouge while watching it XD
Movie was good. If you liked the first you'll like this one. If you spent 10 fucking dollars to see it after not liking the first 2 then your a fool. You just lost 10 dollars and voted for movies you don't even like!
I thought the movie was hilarious. Lots of plot hole garbage, but I thought it was entertaining. Transformers more simplified now. Can see them. They are not just shrapenl like before... Feels more classic at times. Some of the dialog too. "I'm gonna get youuuu" Fun stuff.
If ya didn't like it get your money back. If you didn't than you liked it. 10$ for a movie you hate.. really? Must be nice to have that kind of cash. We should be friends. You can pay for my movies. Then I leave directly afterwards because I don't want to hear ya attitude. I'm back at my house, life moves on. I had a good time. More for me. See you next week.
Its much better than the second one. Bleh on that one. It was entertaining at parts.
Your talking nonsense rv_el, how are supposed to know if you'll like a movie before you see it. You dont consent to liking something just because you pay for it.
But whatever, nice antagonistic trolling tone there.
I dunno, I think he has a point. if you hated/disliked the 1st 2 movies, what makes you think there would be a huge change in style or tonal shift, especially given what was shown in the previews. I went in knowing that the film was just going to be 2 hours of explosions and horribly akward humor and was cool with it.
Pirates 4 on the other hand, I loved the 1st and enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd films, but pirates 4 was so damn dissapointing and just kinda...boring. It certainly felt scaled back budget wise and the story was abysmal. You would find me bitching about that movie to people a lot more than seeing a movie that is in keeping with the franchise it was spawned from.
Replies
The main thing with these movies (from a huge fan of the franchise) is that neither of the sequels were able to live up to what the first movie set in motion. The first film, to me, was a perfect compromise of taking a franchise like Transformers and playing with the elements to craft a movie that appealed to both fans and mainstream folk. It was a great starting point. In the first film, you had to have an emphasis on human characters to tie the mainstream audience into it. They could relate to them, and thus be introduced to the Transformers and their world through the human characters' eyes. Certain elements that don't translate well to the big screen were retooled or left out. It was a movie that established a new continuity.
At that point they could've shifted the focus more and more to the actual stars of the franchise, the Transformers themselves, while still having the human element involved. With every film, you see a little bit more, but never all the way. Instead, the robots are left with little characterization, little development, and a lot of fans fool themselves into saying "yeah, well Starscream got a lot more character development this time" simply because he had a few lines.
The reality is, I don't think Bay ever really cared for the Transformers and didn't think of the original property as more than a "silly toy movie." It's known that he didn't want to do the movie to begin with, and it wasn't until Spielberg and Hasbro convinced him that he signed on. I think he honestly thought he was upgrading the franchise and making it better by incorporating all these elements that weren't needed. Hot chicks, massive explosions at every turn, inappropriate humor...all of these things were put in, in his eye,s to "make it better." In reality, there is a ton of interesting mythology, characters and storylines from both the cartoon and comics that have kept the franchise afloat that carry a lot of weight that could've been drawn from. The comics in particular, where the characters and stories were really allowed to grow. You can still take big transforming robots and have real emotion and consequences involved in their stories, without having to inject human characters for the sake of the mainstream audience. These movies could still have action, still have crazy cg, and have been fun action movies in the same vein as Iron Man instead of the polarizing films that they are.
While this third film was entertaining and a fun action movie in it's own right, as a fan, I can't help but feel that they dropped the ball again. While these movies have made a ton of money, the franchise deserves better than to be forever remembered as that big dumb action movie. I applaud Bay for keeping the franchise alive, and making it more popular than ever. But now that he's leaving it, I'd like to see someone take the helm and do it right.
? Wait, did you not see Revenge of the Fallen? Or perhaps you simply didn't pay to see Revenge of the Fallen? (on HBO, or at a friend's house)
...and still you hate quite awesome blockbuster fun movie. I think it's a little sad.
WHAT THE FUCK. They're ROBOTS.
THIS
Does not make me go
Probably for the best though. IMAX 3D is like $20.
I didn't pay to see it, but I still think it's a superior film. It wasn't a nonstop action marathon, so scenes could stand on their own and be memorable. The forest fight, Devastator forming, the Fallen lifting pyramid blocks, and some other small scenes all made for memorable action sequences involving the transformers.
TF3's best action sequences were... I can barely remember? It was all a huge nonstop blur of poorly choreographed robot melees between autobots and those aliens from Crysis 2. The only scenes that stood out were two sequences with humans, being the wingsuit scene (very cool actually) and the insanely retarded falling building sequence. There was no "wow" moment in the entire film involving transformers, which is absurd considering the CGI was terrific. Bay pumped everything up to 11 for the entire second half of the film, and consequently your brain turns off and you can't even be bothered to care. He made robots boring for me. ME! Giant robots are all I've wanted to see in a blockbuster for years, and Bay massacred it for 3 straight movies.
But really the thing that made me most angry and totally destroyed the film for me was that as the Chicago battle went on the amount of relentlessly stupid things that happened just piled up one on top of the other into an unparalleled marathon of bullshit. I don't think any other film has insulted my intelligence that much, that quickly. I'm all for mindless blockbusters (I enjoyed Thor, Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia, for example), but I assume that mindless means "minimal plot" not "idiotic plot with holes the size of Bay's ego".
Preaching to the choir. I wanted to fall asleep during most of the Chicago sequence, but it was so loud and I simply didn't care about what was happening in the movie anymore.
Of the scenes you list here are just special-effects money shots. And every single one of them is punctuated by inane idiocy. That was one of my biggest issues with RotF.
Micheal Bay movies need to space the idiocy out properly, and they need to tone it to the degree that it doesn't distract from the special effects, action, and explosions. That way the viewer is able to slip into the Bay-trance, switch their brain off, and derive some level of enjoyment from the film. Transformers 2 was so mind-blowingly idiotic, so frequently, that the sheer awfulness of what was being presented would jar me out of my Bay-trance, and spoil my enjoyment of the film.
Case in point, the scene of Devastator forming is totally sweet. Seven robots combine in a protracted orgy of CGI special effects. What is the first thing they do immediately after having Devastator complete? They have him fight the Twins. And to add insult to injury, this mechanical monstrosity doesn't even manage to kill one of the little bastards.
The Optimus fight in the forest was better than most of the other fights up to that point. But even that made no sense! All of the other Transformers simply vanish while Optimus Prime is getting ganged up on. And even though supposedly "only a Prime can kill a Prime," Megatron ends the fight abruptly by cheap-shotting Optimus through the back. And on top of all this mess, we have to put up with Shia LeBouf screaming Optimus over and over again while the rest of the Transformers suddenly show up.
Revenge of the Fallen spoiled its own best moments over and over again. Though far from a good film, at least Transformers 3 manages to maintain a certain level of cohesion. They keep the idiocy infrequent and unobtrusive enough not to break the flow.
No, it's that it was long, boring, terribly, choerographed, edited, written, and relentlessly tried to sabotage itself. And succeeded!
If I have to eat shit, I'd rather eat it with cake than with more shit. RotF was full of bullshit, but it managed to transcend it and finish on some sort of decent note. DotM had less bullshit, but concentrated almost all of it in one big giant clusterfuck right at the end.
1) Shia LeBouf can't come up in these conversations, because he was equally annoying in all of the movies.
2) The fight made little sense, but it was cool. The transformer vs transformer fights in DotM made more sense, but weren't cool at all (with exception of Sentinels last fight, but by then my brain was frying anyways). Transformers had crappy fight choreography in general, which is why the forest fight stood out, since it was a fairly strong showing.
Ha, no. Horrific cliches, plot holes everywhere, completely nonsensical sequence of events, stupid plot which both makes the previous film irrelevant and also sabotages the ending of this one, hamfisted cgi usage and misdirected concepts in general, horrible resolution of transformer rivalries, and lets not even talk about Cybertron.
Nerd-ON
-The falling building scene: The best solution anyone can think of when being attacked is to jump out of a building which is still near vertical, and only tips to allow them to live as they're sliding to their deaths. Absurd, and totally in line with Bay's "do stupid shit and justify it as you go" style.
-The Starscream fight had one of the lead Decepticons stabbed in both eyes, flailing like a B movie villain shouting "MY EYES!" and then dying when his head explodes. I'm not sure I've seen a less dignified death on film.
-Megatron's big intro is him transforming to robot mode from the Truck straight out of The Road Warrior, and he has a cape and a vulture pet perching on his hand.
-Sentinel's otherwise decent fight scene ends with him getting taken out by Megatron, who is then summarily dispatched by Optimus as if he wasn't the major villain for three whole movies. Then Optimus shoots Sentinel right away. An entire climax in, oh 1 minute?
-Apparently if the warp pillars fail it causes the target site to blow up. Real smooth using that on your entire homeworld.
-They were planning to bring Cybertron into earth's atmosphere, by just tugging it through hyperspace right next to earth. Not even far away, but right in low orbit. Even by Bay standards that's impossibly stupid both for how it looks, and how it would spoil the entire plan when the planets crush each other
-Optimus vs Shockwave ends with Optimus stuck in some crane cables dangling in the air like a fool, and he needs his useless robot flunkies to free him. Way to make your hero look useless and idiotic.
-The finale was painfully patriotic without saying anything directly. Truly, Bay is a talented man.
-Those two midget transformers took down the decepticon ship. Their presence alone is idiotic enough.
-Instead of killing Bumblebee and having the viewer feel something genuine for the only sympathetic autobot, they save him with more improbably bullshit.
-Everything Optimus says is borderline evil sounding. Admittedly less so than the finale of RotF, where his dialogue was full villain mode. Seriously, "Give me your face" is NOT what a hero says as he kills the bad guy.
RotF was crap, but at least it managed to round out the last 10 minutes with a solid showing without complete WTF moments. DotM self-destructed.
I felt nothing throughtout Transformers 3 albiet the action was good, and you could see what was going on ,but you knew what was going to happen it tried all these annoying little manipulative tricks which none of it worked because they were so cheap, the whole thing was just boring.
They flew in wings suits for about five minutes at the height of a sky scraper, I know sky scrapers arent that high nor wings suits that good. I can see some of the thinking behind it. "You know wing suits are cool I want them. I got caned for all the blatant military machine masturbations in the last film. I know lets drive up the marines recruitment, by showing how bad arse the ordinary men are this time(and I can masturbate to them as well)."
Transfomers 2 gets my vote for Micheal Bay getting Robots testicles into a mainstream film, how that got past the sane people I dont know. Transformers 2 I didnt have a clue what was going to happen.
Holy shit sentence him to the capital punishment!
I second this. What a travesty. Boycotted for sure, now!
We shall vote with out phalli's!
Okay, in your spoiler section you do bring up a lot of valid complaints vis-a-vis the shortcomings of the hour-long action sequence. I noticed all of your complaints when I saw the movie, but they simply didn't jar me as much as the innumerable inconsistencies in RotF. Part of it could be that my expectations had already been drastically lowered by the previous film. Part of it could be that they managed to slap Micheal Bay's hand away from the genitalia, fart, and humping jokes. The inserted "humor" sequences were still incredibly lame in DotM, just mildly less brain-dead and offensive.
But you can't tell me that the finale of the second film was honestly better than the protracted one-on-one fight we saw in DotM? In RotF, Optimus goes Super-Saiyan and eliminates all of the major antagonists immediately. It was such a disappointing deus-ex. Not to mention the incredibly inane robot heaven that Shia LeBouf visits. And all of that was preceded by half an hour of two sweaty college-age idiots running through the desert in slow-mo with shaky-cam.
Though woefully overblown and interspersed with Micheal Bay's trademark attempts at humor, I still maintain that the ending sequence in DotM is superior to the climax of RotF. And for anyone who hasn't seen it yet and is considering it, I would strongly recommend going for the 3D option. You don't need to see it in IMAX, but make sure you go to a 3D-enabled showing. The 3D helps you to tell the various robots apart during the action sequences, which definitely improves the experience somewhat.
Also, isn't it just a little sad that we're debating over which movie was the most shitty?
I enjoyed the first Transformers and I thought the second one was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I went into this one very skeptical.
The sheer epicness of the opening shot of the autobots and deceptions fighting on cybertron and the fact of how small they looked compared to their environment nearly made my brain blow out of the back of my skull. The amount of detail that was put into that one shot absolutely blew my mind. One of the coolest opening sequences I have ever seen in a film.
There were so many just absolutely amazing and complex sequences in the movie. Granted when the Beouf opened his mouth or any sort of humanoid plot was going down it was down right awful. I went into it knowing you need to look past that crap to enjoy it, and once I did I found the film thoroughly enjoying.
If you look through all the bullshit it will really make you feel like a kid again.
seriously.
Actually I'd say it was Crysis 2 that was heavily inspired by the ILM Transformer designs. The police car bot in the 2007 movie, in particular, not that there's anything wrong with that.
I think I've seen enough explosions and expertly rendered metallic shrapnel and transformer bits to last me at least until the next transformers movie.
Bring on Unicron plsthx.
Michael Bay I salute you.
the action was pretty darn sweet. Micheal Bay certainly knows his way around explosions, that's for sure.
The romance and actual plot on the other hand was, as expected, a crock of shit. That crazy Asian guy gave me a few chuckles and John Malkovich was great though.
In the end it lived up to my (rather low) expectations- a summer blockbuster with more muscle than brain and a definite improvement over 1 and 2.
By the way, who's idea was it to cast that butterface-galore? Just look at her lips!
uuuuuuuuaAAAAAAAAAGH
Hmm, wonder what would Hitler say...(http://www.filmindustrynetwork.biz/nazis-invented-3d-films-before-hollywood-according-to-new-discovery/8255)
Just got back from the last showing, enjoyed it immensely. Sorry a lot of you couldn't.
I've never liked Shia or the plastic hollywood girl (so ugly I feel sorry for her)
Y u do dis? :poly122:
Be a man and watch Mulan now.
[ame]
This!^
I thought Transformers 2 was a slap in the face of good taste.
But Transformers 3, was tremendously awesome! Really enjoyed it! Was looking for a CG flying pig after a while :P The stereoscopy was also really well done. I'll probably go see it again :thumbup: (Never thought I'd be saying that about a Michael Bay film!)
There are also three characters that I wish had been dropped after the first movie. The parents and John Turturro. Those characters always feel forced and they put the cheese factor to a nauseating level. And the government hardass chick was annoying.
I also don't get the hate on this new 'hot' chick. I think she's hotter than Megan Fox, and I felt her acting was better too. I did get a little tired of the movie trying to tell me that she's hot. Did it really require a comment by every person that meets her for the first time?
Anyway, I know that I've said so far makes it sound like I didn't like it, but I thought the Transformers part of this was amazing. Honestly, if they had cut out all of Sam's personal life crap, the movie may have been just about perfect for me.
I could have lived without that as well, but it didn't bother me as much as it did you.
I agree with the parents but I liked Turturro's character - made me laugh.
I'll definitely agree that her acting is better but I think both of them are fugly.
I think if they had more transformers shit and less human I definitely would have liked it even more. But for me at least, it wasn't something that detracted enough away from the film to make it less enjoyable.
Was she wearing the high heels at the end? Does that mean she go through all the fall throughout the building and all the city stuff at the end, to keep those high heels on? That's superwoman right there.
Ace-angel: my daughters are 14 and 18, so seeing a woman in underwear and a button up shirt, is no different than most TV ads these days. Hell, she was more covered up than most Victoria Secret ads.
I didn't find Turturro's character nearly as bad this round, but I really would be just as happy if he were not a part of the movie. The Dutch character was definitely fun though.
Sorry if that wasn't obvious...
I thought the movie was hilarious. Lots of plot hole garbage, but I thought it was entertaining. Transformers more simplified now. Can see them. They are not just shrapenl like before... Feels more classic at times. Some of the dialog too. "I'm gonna get youuuu" Fun stuff.
If ya didn't like it get your money back. If you didn't than you liked it. 10$ for a movie you hate.. really? Must be nice to have that kind of cash. We should be friends. You can pay for my movies. Then I leave directly afterwards because I don't want to hear ya attitude. I'm back at my house, life moves on. I had a good time. More for me. See you next week.
Its much better than the second one. Bleh on that one. It was entertaining at parts.
But whatever, nice antagonistic trolling tone there.
Pirates 4 on the other hand, I loved the 1st and enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd films, but pirates 4 was so damn dissapointing and just kinda...boring. It certainly felt scaled back budget wise and the story was abysmal. You would find me bitching about that movie to people a lot more than seeing a movie that is in keeping with the franchise it was spawned from.