This past weekend I went down to the local movie house, and got to see Transformers: Dark Of The Moon on the big screen. All I can say is… Wow. This is the Transformers movie we have been waiting for.
I am a fan of Transformers; I always have been. I thought the first Transformers movie was awesome. I was disappointed with Revenge of the Fallen (lots of people were disappointed with that one, even Michael Bay). Dark of the Moon fixes everything that went wrong with “Fallen”.
If you are looking for a movie review (like for promotional advertising, hint, hint), I’ll write it for you… “It’s Transformer-ific!” – Comic Book Daily. Other than that, I really enjoyed the movie. It could be the best of the series, but I prefer to wait a couple of years to make that proclamation.
So instead of giving a review of the movie, I thought I would mention the things I really liked about the movie. This could contain spoilers, so if you don’t want any spoilers, bookmark this page, then come back after you see the movie.
One of the first things I liked, was Leonard Nimoy in the movie. Nimoy is an important element to Transformers. He was the voice of Galvatron in the Transformers animated movie from 1986. I still think he should have been the voice of the Fallen in Transformers 2. Leonard Nimoy was the voice of Sentinel Prime in Dark of the Moon. Sentinel Prime is the Transformer shown in the original teaser trailer. At the time there was speculation if it was Alpha Trion or Unicron, but it is Sentinel Prime. Sentinel Prime was leader of the Autobots, who passed the Matrix of Leadership to Optimus Prime.
Sentinel Prime has an amazing line of dialogue (which I am the only one to laugh at during the movie). Sentinel Prime says to Optimus “The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many!” That line blew my mind. I don’t think anybody in the theatre figured out, it was the reverse of Spock’s line from Wrath Of Khan (Needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few).
There was another scene where Wheelie and Brains are watching Star Trek on TV. Spock was on the screen and Brains says “Isn’t this the one where he goes crazy?” Which I took as a hint (in retrospect) to Sentinel Prime’s intentions.
Megan Fox… who’s Megan Fox? Was she even in any Transformer movie?
Rosie Huntington-Whitely made me forget totally about Megan Fox and her character Michaela.
The addition of Carly Spencer (Rosie’s character) was inevitable. In the Transformers universe Carly and Sam (aka Spike) meet, get married and have a son Daniel. You couldn’t have the character Sam Witwicky, without having Carly in the movie somewhere.
Rosie Huntington-Whitely is absolutely beautiful as well. You can definitely tell she is a Victoria Secret model. During the action scenes I could hear my wife whisper “Those are some pretty good high heels, she can do a lot of running in those.”
I was also glad to see Skids and Mudflap are gone. I, like many people, hated those Transformers. The comic relief in this movie was Wheelie (voiced by Sponge Bob Square Pants) and Brains (voiced by Carl from Mike and Molly). They had some very funny moments that were fun to watch. Not painful to watch like Skids and Mudflap.
I was very excited (apparently I “fist-pumped” a YES!) to see Optimus Prime have his trailer in Dark of the Moon. And not only is his trailer there, they showed it transform. In the cartoon, when Optimus transformed into robot mode, the trailer would disappear. When he would transform into vehicle mode, the trailer would re-enter the screen and attach. There wasn’t an explanation of where it went or how it came back. Dark of the Moon explains this now. Optimus transformed into robot mode, the trailer transformed into an armoury for Optimus. This is idea is perfect. It showed a realistic function for the trailer.
Since Dark of the Moon is a darker movie, Sam Witwicky’s character transformed as well. He isn’t the smart-mouthed teenager anymore. He is frustrated because he has saved the world twice, and nobody knows about it. He is also frustrated that he doesn’t get to see Bumblebee as much anymore, and he can’t work with the Autobots and N.E.S.T. He accepts a job after the employer (John Malkovich) tells him “You want the job after this job, but you need this one first”. It is a job in the mail room, but the Decepticon plot is revealed to him at his new place of work. Sam finds out that Carly’s new boss (McDreamy as one person yelled out in the theatre) works for the Decepticons, and there is a human coalition working for Megatron.
Megatron has a new look for Dark of the Moon. This is the best vehicle mode for Megatron… ever. Megatron hasn’t recovered from his injuries sustained in Revenge of the Fallen. He is still in Africa plotting against the Autobots. His new vehicle mode is a Mack tanker truck. It looks like it is straight out of Road Warrior. It looks tough. It looks mean. It is perfect for Megatron.
If this is the final Transformer movie, it has ended well. The Decpticons have been defeated. Megatron, Shockwave and Starscream are gone. There isn’t anybody left to lead the Decepticons, except for Shockwave, I think he survived (the Decepticons all look the same after a while). If there was going to be a fourth movie, it would have to be a big enemy. I mean really big. Unicron would be the only reason to make another Transformers movie. There are still lots of Autobots to introduce (for example Rodimus and Ultra Magnus), who could fight against Unicron.
This might look like the end for the Transformers movie franchise, but you know there is more than meets the eye!
