Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.Apparently the first two installments were mulligans. That's right, after four years and $550 million in practice, Michael Bay has finally figured it out. Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the movie that fans have waited for, critics have complained about, and box office receipts are ripe to reward. Sure, it's still big and bloated, made even more elephantine by the spectacle savant's new love affair with 3D, but it works. The story is simplified and consistently moves forward. The characters -- even the robots -- are given depth and dimension, and the last act decimation of Chicago will be the Summer of 2011's "must see" moment. It's no classic, but it sure is a crowd pleaser. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is now a recent college grad, jobless and living in Washington DC with his new hot honey of a girlfriend, Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). She has a high profile position with entrepreneur Dylan Gould (Patrick Dempsey) and holds down the financial fort while our hero rediscovers his purpose in life. Locked out of the government's control of the Autobots -- even with his friend Lt. Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) in charge -- he is desperate to get back in the game.
Sam's chance comes when a high level employee (Ken Jeong) at his new boss's (John Malkovich) business confronts him, offering information regarding the US space program in the '60s, the discovery of a Cybertron ship on the dark side of the Moon, and the recovery of some crucial artifacts. Naturally, Megatron (Hugo Weaving) wants these items, and is willing to take on Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and old nemesis, Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) to get them. Sam, on the other hand, must convince 'retired' Agent Simmons (John Turturro) and new government hothead Charlotte Mearing (Frances McDormand) to let him help his machine friends.
Considering the incomplete feeling of the original Transformers and the awfulness of Revenge of the Fallen, Dark of the Moon is an epiphany. It's almost like someone else stepped in and reimagined the series while Bay and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg weren't looking. Granted, original franchise scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are MIA this time around, leaving the second installment's helper Ehren Kruger to step in and straighten things out. Gone is the hackneyed mythology that made little or no sense. No more All Spark. No more Matrix of Leadership. Instead, we get the set-up for an all out war, a reason why Earth is the location, and then...CHAOS!
Chicago gets its Midwestern metropolis butt kicked in the last hour of this film. Buildings blow up, bend and crumble. Flying alien spacecraft slam into famous landmarks while the Loop looks like a body-strewn war zone. Bay stages this finale brilliantly, bringing everything in his over the top arsenal to the table. Yes, there is still the forced patriotism and irrational moments when characters, including 30 foot tall mutating metal extraterrestrials, speak of freedom and duty, but this time around, we don't mind. Since Bay has already confronted and confused us with his various creative choices, nothing seems out of bounds now, not even the complete and utter destruction of the famed Windy City.
As for the cast, everyone shows up to cash their check and no one really embarrasses themselves. Newcomer Huntington-Whiteley is no better or worse than the curt Kewpie Doll she replaced, even if her British accent gives Carly an air of intelligence that her otherwise vacant stare negates. Similarly, some of the important players from previous installments are pushed aside to make room for solid scenery chewing from McDormand and Malkovich. Even the knucklehead level of comedy comes off as an integral part of the overall process.
Ultimately, Bay manages the near-impossible: he makes us wonder what's next for this billion dollar bonanza. As long as he follows the formula he finally discovered here, it will be another implausible piece of pure popcorn entertainment.
