Transformers: Dark of the Moon

After the ill-advised detour into avant-garde abstraction that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Bay has decided to return to what he knows: guns, cars, and the poetry of the female form in its more malnourished state. Cobbler, stick to thy last.

The early scenes in Transformers: Dark of the Moon even resemble something almost like entertainment. Bay begins his latest trip to the toy box with a zippy burlesque of the space race, suggesting that America travelled to the moon to explore a crashed Autobot ship containing a wizened robot called Sentinel Prime, as well as some sort of spacebridge that could bring about the end of the world (as per usual). It’s still fairly stupid, mind you, but there’s a certain charm to this children’s matinee version of conspiracy theory paranoia. If nothing else, it’s a welcome break from the more tedious garden-variety stupidity that otherwise characterizes these films. Still, a familiar sinking feeling sets in by the time Optimus Prime, our hero, is saluted by Buzz Aldrin, appearing here in a cameo that suggests the astronaut pension plan must be in a pretty lousy state these days. Yes, it’s time for another two-plus hour epic of explosions interrupted only by broad, failed swipes at comedy and sonorous military speeches from a kid’s toy. Brace yourselves.

The cast is sadly more or less the same as previous films, once again headed up by eternally shrieking man-child Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky. He’s supported by the usual mix of generic second-rate action heroes (Josh Duhammel, Tyrese Gibson) and slumming character actors most likely looking for a bit of street-cred with their teenage offspring (Frances McDormand, Johns Turturro and Malkovich). The one exception is Megan Fox, who was kicked out of the party during one of Herr Bay’s purges and whose career now bears the tragic distinction of having peaked with the second Transformers movie.

However, model Rosie Huntington-Whitely, making her first acting performance here as Fox’s replacement, unfailingly performs the function of an archetypal Michael Bay heroine, which is to say she’s capable of running through a war zone in four-inch heels. To her credit (or perhaps to everyone else’s demerit), she’s no discernibly better or worse than any of the experienced actors that surround her. Presumably, she also did not sass Bay whenever he would film her butt, so I guess we should applaud her professionalism or whatever you want to call it.

So: objectified women? Check. Anthropomorphic objects? Check. Human beings? Um…better start digging, because if there are any, they’re probably buried under several tonnes of CGI rubble and the air is getting thin. One of the more surreal qualities of a Michael Bay film is the way he injects bursts of emotion—explosions of sentimentality as random and jarring as the more traditional pyrotechnics—into an environment completely hostile to all human feeling. Aside from the expected dull inspirational speeches (“You may lose faith in us, but never in yourselves.” Uh, what?), this also means you’ll be routinely baffled by why any of these people should care about each other.

One particularly confusing instance comes with the random reappearance of Epps (Gibson), a minor, undeveloped character from the previous film that apparently has some sort of deep bond with Sam. Did they even talk in the last movie? Was all the male bonding implied? Did I just miss it? Was it somewhere behind the explosions, where we couldn’t see it? I started to wonder if the two actors were maybe confusing off-camera camaraderie with the on-screen relationship between their characters. I’m sure there must have been plenty of bonding time during the last movie while they waited at the craft service table as Bay tried to explain to Megan Fox the correct way to arch her back. Otherwise, I can’t see why the pair should be acting like old friends.

It’s a small sin, I suppose. None of this makes much sense, although the movie is clearly more coherent than its predecessor, even with its disjointed editing and countless useless little scenes that come from—and quickly return to—nowhere. But the core of the film is still pure incomprehensible gibberish, a mass of sci-fi clichés welded together with discarded auto parts. Apparently the Decepticons want to enslave the human race. I see several noteworthy flaws in the logic of the magical evil spacebots. Allow me to elucidate. First, they spend an inordinate amount of time vapourizing their coveted labour resource, which is never good business. Second, why would a race of giant, super-powerful robots with technology advanced far beyond ours need the primitive, puny, comparably weaker human race as slaves? Based purely on a size-ratio comparison alone, this is akin to humans enslaving mice. Now, I imagine with a bit of fortitude and ingenuity and maybe a few decades of work you could train a giant slave army of mice to, say, clean your toilet. Or you could simply do it yourself, which would take about one minute, or a little longer if you need to let it soak. What I’m saying is, just how lazy are these Decepticons? And exactly how credulous do we have to be to enjoy this nonsense?

But perhaps I’m being unfair. For all his notable failings here, Bay has actually shown marked improvement over Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Certainly, this movie is much less racist than its predecessor. The rather unfortunate robotic minstrel sideshow in the previous movie has given way to broader, more socially acceptable—if no less annoying—forms of comic relief. On the other hand, progress is a relative thing, considering this movie still refers to the Middle East as if it were a single country (you know, it’s the one filled with all the swarthy people who hate FREEDOM). And Bay seems to be working towards a clumsy form of narrative economy—perhaps intended to combat the bloated two and a half hour running time—by simply having minor characters say, “We’re dead,” thus sparing us the obligatory slow-motion tornado of junkyard scrap as they actually die.

What can I say? In something as regressive as this movie, you take your signs of progress where you can. Everything that happens feels like a salve for the wounded ego of an entitled post-adolescent male, here represented by Sam. Sure, he’s an unemployed, self-pitying schlub, but he deserves everything and more: the supermodel girlfriend with an inexplicably huge house, the best car, the respect and admiration of the entire world, you name it (see, Sam saved the world twice, and now he has to work an entry-level job right out of college, oh the humanity). When the Decepticons are about to execute Bumblebee, Sam’s Autobot buddy, the film displays what might be its one genuine flicker of emotion. How sad to think it comes when someone is faced with the prospect of losing his first car.

Are we seriously supposed to be moved by the petty insecurities of the privileged and the powerful? Look, I know everyone has their problems, and I don’t want to disparage the emotional suffering of anyone. But it’s hard to feel much empathy when it all comes couched in the crass objectification of women, tinged with homophobia—I didn’t even mention the mincing gay superspy—and filtered through a generally narrow-minded, hateful worldview (see previous paragraphs for the assembled evidence). Still, with a total of over $800 million in worldwide box office so far, Transformers: Dark of the Moon seems to be providing some kind of comfort for countless poor, suffering souls out there. Perhaps all they need is a kind voice to reassure them that they, like Sam, are indeed special and wonderful. And also, apparently, that Arabs are evil, homosexuals are gross, and women are fuck-holes. Sentinel Prime—thoughtful fellow, he—sums up the situation quite well: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And then he blows up Chicago.

The Hurt Locker

You almost begin to pray for explosions. Not out of malice or sheer bloodlust—you just want an end to the maddening tension that permeates every moment. And once in a while, there is the release of an explosion or some gunfire or even a few punches to the gut exchanged in the midst of some drunken macho horseplay. But again and again you return to that same nerve-rattling tension, that same suspended moment. There’s always the knowledge that you’ll be dead the moment you hit the ground, but for every second you’re in the air, you might as well be immortal.

The Hurt Locker, a steely-eyed new film directed by Kathryn Bigelow from a well-observed script from Mark Boal, is all about the addiction of war as an experience, examining the heavy psychological toll exacted by continual exposure to your own imminent death. This is war as a state of mind. You carry it with you wherever you go.

Set during 2004 in Iraq, the film narrows its focus to a single Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit. After losing their team leader during a mission, JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) find themselves saddled with Sergeant Will James (Jeremy Renner), an arrogant veteran EOD soldier who claims to have defused more than 800 bombs. Reckless in his confidence, James exposes his teammates to unnecessary risks without a second thought. He simply acts—effectively, as it typically turns out, but with little regard for safety.

Some of the conflicts that arise in the group as a result of James’ brash behaviour might seem familiar at first: Eldridge is a brittle, inexperienced soldier, crumbling under the constant strain, while Sanborn clings to regulations and rules as a bulwark against James’ more impulsive methods. But Sanborn’s by-the-book demeanor masks incredible anxiety and fear, and James’ cocksure attitude is similarly a façade of sorts. Even though initial appearances make it seem James is just an arrogant young twerp on a short march to the grave, it soon becomes evident that he is not only a good soldier, but also one who cares for his comrades, despite his recklessness.

In many ways, in fact, he is held up as an exemplary soldier (his superiors make much of his impressive record), and that is ultimately what makes his character so pitiable. As he excels at war, so he fails at domesticity. During one of the few scenes that occur outside of Iraq, we see him standing in a grocery store, staring at a daunting wall of cereal boxes, hesitating. Where is the bold confidence of the soldier who defuses a bomb in the still-smoldering wreckage of a car, unconcerned with the likelihood of his own death? When James tries to describe his relationship with the mother of his son, there is a helplessness and confusion that suggests war is, like any other drug, an escape from the bewildering problems of normal life.

Many of these concerns are more general and not tied to any specific conflict, but by limiting itself to this one group of soldiers the film provides some interesting insights into the Iraq war. For the EOD unit, everyone and everything is a potential threat. When they walk into a bomb scene, each scrap of litter potentially hides an IED, and each onlooker possibly holds the detonator. And if you have to treat all Iraqi citizens like enemies, is it any wonder when so many turn out to be exactly that? At one point, a standoff ensues when a taxi bursts through a military barricade onto a bomb scene. As Will points his gun at the head of the driver, the two stare in a sudden and inexplicable test of wills. Is this man really hoping to attack the American military? Or, merely frustrated by the sight of the army, did he choose to defy their presence and carry on with his normal route, only to find a gun aiming between his eyes? After he backs down, soldiers yank him out of his car and drag him away. “If he wasn’t an insurgent,” Will jokes, “he is now.”

The Hurt Locker represents something seemingly contradictory: an intelligent action film. We’re so used to seeing action filmmaking as purely mindless diversion that it’s startling to see a director of such intelligence committed to the cause. Yes, this film is visceral and exciting, but it’s also attentive to the consequences—both physical and psychological—of its violence. At this time of year, you could walk into any multiplex and stumble across countless imagined disaster scenarios, with buildings bursting into computer-generated rubble left and right while corpses fall like rain drops. Action is a dirty word in these cases, signifying films in which violence and carnage is envisioned as a child’s game. Bigelow prefers to describe her films as “experiential,” which only makes clear the divide between her and the mainstream of action filmmaking. In a film like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, you feel distanced from the action, but in The Hurt Locker, everything feels intensely immediate. You pray for that explosion to come and relieve the tension because this is happening not just to James, but also to you, and like that soldier, you can taste that same seductively self-annihilating adrenalin.

It’s tempting to see Bigelow’s film as a corrective to these mainstream action movies, even though that does a disservice to the complexity of her intentions and methods. When I think back to the first explosion in the film, I don’t think of the blast itself, but rather gravel rising in slow motion or rust shaking off of an abandoned car. Such images capture the brute force of the blast in a way that is not only more poetic, but also more tangible and meaningful, than the usual cliché of sending some debris flying at the camera. Who needs IMAX when you actually have a good director?

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

The shape of things breaks open, cracks like a glass bottle and only light comes out, light and the awful sound of voices, distorted beyond recognition into guttural howls. An explosion crackles in my ear and the light flickers, that supple and mysterious light that bends with the sound into the shape of a spectrogram of one long scream. Something is becoming, but it remains formless, only light and screams and that crackling in my ear. I look, but I see nothing.

Oh my god, I think, I’ve gone blind.

It’s an hour into Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and I’ve gone blind. I’m staring at the screen, but I can’t see anything. Everything has descended into chaos, and even though my brain is gamely trying to process the visual incoherence of two giant walking scrap-yards smashing into each other, my eyes have given up. I panic.

I’m sure this all sounds like melodrama for the purposes of taking cheap shots at Michael Bay’s latest monstrosity, but I assure you the panic was real. I’ve never walked out of a movie before, but I came perilously close in this case, if only because I was momentarily terrified at the thought of exposing myself to another hour and a half of a movie that my body seemed to be physically rejecting.

Never before have I been so grateful for Bay’s grating comic sensibility as I was here. Those prattling, obnoxious scenes of forced wackiness and sitcom one-liners are as soothing to the ear as a dentist drill to your back molars, but visually they refresh like eye drops when compared to the onslaught of the action sequences. At the very least, they allowed my eyes to come back into focus and let me brace myself for the next wave of optic insanity. Whoever coined the phrase “Non-stop thrill ride!” should be shot out of a cannon. Into a burning building. While the sun explodes. This is the world you, anonymous jackass, have wrought.

How do you write sensibly about a movie that lays siege to your very senses? How do you critically review a punch to your own face? How does one assess, without resorting to hyperbole or hysterics, a movie that instead of offering us a new way of seeing the world rather provides a new way of going blind? The movie’s style is so pulverizing (and the content so incoherent) that you can really only appreciate it on the most basic sensory level as two and a half hours of varying shades of colour and alternations between loud and louder. This is stimulation that will leave you numb, a movie to end all movies. You’ll become so wearied with constant excitement that you'll be left bored. Um, two thumbs down for the bright boom-boom?

If it seems like I’m ignoring the plot, I assure you that would be quite impossible, as one can no more ignore the plot of Transformers: ROTF than you can ignore God, Sasquatch, and other mythical creatures. Allow me a quick summary for the curious and the damned: a bunch of things are blown up on a computer somewhere in California while Megan Fox runs in slow motion in a tank top and Michael Bay lights a cigar with a hundred dollar bill. The end.

The more elaborate summary—the one addresses the heart of the film, such as it is—requires a bit more of a straight face, so let’s see if I can do this without being too snide. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is about to go off to college. His impossibly dumb parents are struggling with the prospect of an empty nest, his mother weeping all over the place while his dad puts on a brave face and acts tough. Sam makes plans to maintain a long-distance relationship with his impossibly hot girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox), while his just plain impossible alien robot car is undergoing a bit of separation anxiety because Sam has sent it scampering back to its own kind like a wayward dog. Meanwhile, good alien robots fight bad alien robots, a perfectly fine pyramid is wrecked, and for good measure, there’s an attempt to destroy the sun.

The great unwitting joke of the film is that Transformers: ROTF is actually a tender coming-of-age story about Sam becoming a man—no, really—but this ostensible human foundation for the robotic carnage is largely forgotten amidst the explosions and aforementioned slo-mo shots of Megan Fox, to say nothing of the inordinate amounts of time spent on a dog-humping motif and the unpleasant (and now infamous) sambobots. Indeed, one could go on and on about the various incidental stupidities that dust the movie like little turd sprinkles on a big shit cake. When the long-buried emotional arc suddenly resurfaces during the climactic battle in Egypt, it’s hard not to laugh out loud at the movie’s self-deluding conception of itself. You mean this isn’t about tits and explosions, after all? I reiterate: two thumbs down for the bright boom-boom.

But of course it’s laughable that Bay's absurd demolition zone of a movie could actually be a plausible coming-of-age story. How could any movie that aims no higher than the sensibility of a fifteen-year-old boy really say anything about maturity or responsibility? And why does it even try? One of the most puzzling things about Michael Bay is how he makes such unrelentingly shallow movies while still attempting to add moments of emotional uplift amidst the sterile CGI carnage. Unfortunately, with such uniformly obnoxious, unlikable characters, any attempt to create touching or inspirational moments feels like cruel mockery. Good things do happen to shallow jerks like these people. As for the rest of us, we get Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.