Second Look - Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Note: This review contains spoilers for Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

After taking another look at the storytelling mess that is Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen, I decided it might be worth taking another look at Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in light of how the Bumblebee film’s high quality got me to reevaluate the previous films. Though it was difficult finding the right time to do so due to its length, I managed to find a long-enough period of time after I finished revisiting the video game prequel to the movie. While the film itself is still a vast improvement over the previous film and has some great moments in it, there are some issues with its pacing that prevent it from being more enjoyable than it actually is.

In the year 1961, the Autobot ship known as the Ark, headed by then-leader Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy), crash-landed on the Moon. Upon being discovered by the US government, a team of astronauts, including Neil Armstrong (Don Jeanes) and Buzz Aldrin (Cory Tucker), is sent up there to investigate as part of the famous Apollo 11 mission. In the present, Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and a team of Autobots work with NEST to investigate a sighting of an artifact in Chernobyl that turns out to be of Cybertronian origin, during which they are attacked by the Decepticon Shockwave (Frank Welker). Meanwhile, Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) is a college graduate still searching for a job, living with his new girlfriend Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) and a pair of Autobots, Wheelie (Tom Kenny) and Brains (Reno Wilson). Once Sam finally lands a job, it isn’t long until one of his co-workers ends up getting him involved in another potential Autobot/Decepticon conflict.

Shockwave (Frank Welker) ambushes the Autobots at Chernobyl.

The story is generally more focused and straight-forward when compared to its predecessor, Revenge of the Fallen. That said, the two-and-a-half hour runtime could easily have been pared down a bit. Many of the human-centered scenes go on for a bit too long, especially whenever Ron and Judy Witwicky (Kevin Dunn, Julie White) or Seymour Simmons (John Tuturro) are on-screen, often dragging the film to a crawl. There are, however, some interesting ideas that get utilized well, such as the idea of a Decepticon-allied human character and the idea of Sentinel Prime having made a deal with Megatron for what he saw as the greater good. I will note that, during the battle in Chicago at the end of the movie, it was both weird and interesting hearing Trump Tower get name-dropped a handful of times as an important location, since I re-watched the movie during Donald Trump’s term in office (and that is all I will say about that).

Even though the human-focused sequences tend to drag, there are a few lines that got a laugh out of me, such as Dutch (Alan Tudyk) describing the difficulty of reading Russian (“It’s like all the buttons you never push on a calculator”) or when Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) asks during a confrontation with Shockwave, “Why do the Decepticons always get the good shit?” Another chuckle-worthy moment comes from when Wheelie (Tom Kenny) and Brains (Reno Wilson) board a Decepticon ship, only for Brains’ curse to be cut off when describing the complexity of the ship’s inner workings.

Another aspect of the movie that puts it a step above the previous film is the complete absence of humor of the sexual and toilet varieties. Carly Spencer is herself somewhat of a sexual character, though arguably toned down compared to Sam Witwicky’s previous girlfriend Mikaela. The characters of Skids and Mudflap are also absent aside from a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo of their vehicle forms in one shot, however in the Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Adaptation comic from IDW, the pair can be seen getting explicitly killed off at the hands of Sentinel Prime.

While an interesting new addition, the character of Shockwave is criminally under-utilized, given he was hyped up in the comic book and video game tie-ins. The Boss of Accuretta Systems, Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich), has some interesting character depth in that he is very specific about color coordination (don’t you dare have anything colored red on the floor where the primary color is yellow). However, aside from a quick appearance later in the story, this character feels largely wasted here and a similar character with his color coordination quirk may have been better utilized in a whole other film entirely.

On that note, there’s an overabundance of robot characters in general. Many of the new additions (ex. Dino/Mirage, Que/Wheeljack, Roadbuster, Leadfoot, Topspin) and returning characters (ex. Sideswipe, Ratchet, Ironhide) don’t get much screen time, especially among the Autobot troops, so they don’t get fleshed out nearly as much as the primary characters and come across as largely toyline filler, not to mention promoting the unexplained Stealth Force gimmick. The Decepticon side especially has a number of generics on their team, making the robot cast feel bloated at times. While I managed to keep track of the named characters, some of whom I only knew from the toyline, the final battle in Chicago can get chaotic at times, which can make things hard to decipher for some, even with the brighter color palette. There’s also some brazen product placement throughout the movie, not helped by the Wreckers (Roadbuster, Leadfoot, Topspin) having NASCAR vehicle alt-modes, which are by nature often riddled with advertisements from various sponsors.

The Wreckers often feel like walking advertisements.
From left: Topspin, Leadfoot (John DiMaggio), Roadbuster (Ron Bottitta)

One thing about this movie that doesn’t get talked about that often, or gets nearly enough credit, is how much it actually borrows from the 1984 The Transformers cartoon. Much of its story takes inspiration from the multi-part story “The Ultimate Doom”, in which Megatron uses a space bridge to transport the planet Cybertron into Earth’s atmosphere in order to move a hypnotized human slave labor force onto the planet. Some plot points of another multi-part episode, “Megatron’s Master Plan”, are thrown in for good measure, such as the Decepticon-allied human concept and the idea of the Autobots being forced off-world by the humans. Though previously referenced in Transformers: The Game from 2007, one moment is even directly lifted from the cartoon episode “Atlantis, Arise!”, in which Megatron takes Abraham Lincoln’s seat at the Lincoln Memorial for himself as a makeshift throne. Additionally, this film marks the cinematic debut of the Wreckers, a rotating team of Autobots that had previously only existed in comic book form.

The Transformers S2E8 "Atlantis, Arise!"

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Since Leonard Nimoy provides the voice for Sentinel Prime, a number of references to Star Trek are thrown in as a nod to this. Of particular note, a scene at the beginning of the movie sees Wheelie watching a random episode on TV and describing it as “the one where Spock goes nuts”, providing a clever bit of foreshadowing in regards to Sentinel Prime. Additionally, Sentinel Prime directly quotes Spock in such a way that Leonard Nimoy puts a darker twist on one of his most famous lines, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”.

One thing that still holds up well are the visuals, mainly the CGI used for the movie’s massive robot cast. For the most part, the Cybertronian characters are rendered such that they feel like they actually exist in that world, with brighter colors to help distinguish them from each other, mostly between the Autobots. Following with the first two movies, the robots have highly-detailed designs with lots of small moving parts that can make them visually interesting to look at for all the finer details. That said, subsequent movies would make attempts to simplify these designs to make them more visually appealing, which would not be perfected until Bumblebee in 2018.

While the CG has aged well, there was one minor oversight I noticed this time around. During the aforementioned Lincoln Memorial scene, one shot has it appear as though one of Megatron’s tires on his leg is clipping through the marble of President Lincoln’s chair. Another issue I had, this time with the editing, is that the establishing text in the bottom left corner is too small and can be easily missed. While this may have been done with the big screen in mind, this seems like another oversight, except in this case the editors didn’t seem to take the small screen into account (compare this to playing a video game with text designed specifically for HD screens on a CRT).

One thing that I can give credit for in regards to the editing is the integration of the historic Apollo 11 Moon landing from 1969 into the film’s plot. Actual footage from the event, as well as new footage that recreates and recontextualizes others, is cleverly and seamlessly worked into the opening sequence to explain how the US government knew about the Ark’s presence on the Moon and what they found there. That said, one part that still feels a little iffy is when President John F. Kennedy is being told about the discovery of the Ark, sort of fumbling the recontextualization and the mild CG used on Kennedy to make it work to where it can seem a little uncanny.

Amongst the human cast, Shia LeBeouf’s performance as Sam Witwicky hasn’t changed too much between films, consisting largely of screaming things off the top of his lungs between normal dialogue, though otherwise my opinions haven’t changed too much on the returning cast. As for the new talent, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley does a fine job as Carly Spencer, showing a no-nonsense attitude towards a situation when necessary such as during an argument with Sam or addressing Megatron directly regarding his role in the events. Patrick Dempsey is also a stand-out as Dylan Gould, perfectly capturing the sort of character who would align themselves with a group such as the Decepticons. Much like LeBeouf, John Malkovich (Bruce Brazos) and Ken Jeong (Jerry Wang) can chew the scenery a bit, the latter having more of a tendency to swallow it whole. On the brighter side of things, Buzz Aldrin plays himself in a scene where he gets to meet Optimus Prime, one of the few noteworthy highlights of the film.

On the voice acting side of things, while many of the returning voice actors still put on a good performance regardless of how much screen time their characters actually get, Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving (Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively) are definite highlights amongst the robot cast. Frank Welker returns to the role of Soundwave while also providing for Shockwave, the former finally getting a chance to shine while the latter manages to come off as a legitimate threat. Similarly, Keith Szarabajka gives a rather chilling performance as Laserbeak, Soundwave’s minion in the film who can change into anything and execute his targets with great bloodlust.

The late Leonard Nimoy returns to the Transformers franchise after 25 years, having previously played the role of Galvatron in The Transformers: The Movie from 1986. Owing to his extensive career and previous experience playing villainous characters, Nimoy plays the role of Sentinel Prime with a lot of nuance, with his more villainous aspects played off more as him believing he was doing the right thing. This results in some rather believable chemistry with Optimus Prime, coming off as the two being longtime friends even though Sentinel had not been properly introduced prior to this film.

The interactions between Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy, left) and Optimus
Prime (Peter Cullen, right) feel genuine.

While he doesn’t get too say much in the movie, the late Italian-born actor Francesco Quinn plays the role of Mirage, named Dino in the movie due to issues with competitor and Ferrari license-holder Mattel. Due to Ferrari themselves wanting the character to have an actual Italian accent, Quinn fits the role perfectly, adding to Mirage’s character and allowing him to stand out with whatever screen time he had. Mirage would also end up being Quinn’s final role, as he passed away shortly after the film’s release.

In the years following the film’s release, while this wouldn’t have too much of an impact on Transformers fiction on its own, it is one of a handful of depictions of Sentinel Prime at the time (alongside Transformers Animated and Transformers: War for Cybertron) that would help to cement the character’s now standard depiction as an Autobot leader with a more jerkish (at least) or malicious (at worst) side to his personality. Dark of the Moon has also gotten its fair share of representation in the currently-ongoing Studio Series toyline, with several characters getting new toys more in line with their onscreen depictions. Though Optimus Prime has several toys in the line, a different one for each movie, his Dark of the Moon figure is a Leader Class toy that includes a trailer that can finally recreate his weapon loadout seen during the Chernobyl sequence. This toy is also one of two figures (the other being his 2007 film toy, ironically not his Revenge of the Fallen toy) that can combine with the new Jetfire toy to form Jetwing Optimus Prime from ROTF. Of note is also a new Leader Class toy of Megatron that includes a minifigure of the (superfluous) character Igor, as well as an alternate version minus accessories sold at Universal Studios theme parks that’s closer in coloration to the meet-and-greet character near Transformers: The Ride.

With Studio Series, you can finally recreate this moment from the movie.

In relation to the live-action film series Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a major improvement over Revenge of the Fallen, possibly one of the best out of the first five films, though you should not go into this expecting anywhere near the same amount of charm as Bumblebee. The movie has some really good ideas and characters that are puled off really well, however it suffers from many of the shortcomings as the original 2007 film and at points (particularly anything revolving around the Witwicky family) it can feel like it goes on for way too long. While it is sort of a mixed bag, I would more readily recommend this film over its immediate predecessor and it's worth giving it at least a chance if you’re a Transformers fan, albeit with some prior knowledge of the previous two films.

If the film’s pacing and runtime aren’t your thing, I would suggest IDW Publishing’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon Movie Adaptation comic as a suitable alternative, as it has some visually appealing artwork, a faster pace and a different/arguably better ending. Both the single issues and trade paperback collection work, though in case it matters, one thing of note is that the single issues also come with extra prose stories in the back that contain extra lore and are not found in the collection. Additionally, despite serving as a prequel to the film, the Transformers: Dark of the Moon video game captures all of the positive aspects of the movie in what I consider to be a genuinely fun experience.