Dark ‘Transformers’ Unveils Moon Coverup, Lingerie Model: Film
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley
Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures via Bloomberg
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." Photographer: Jaimie Trueblood/Paramount Pictures via Bloomberg
"Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
Paramount Pictures via Bloomberg
"Bumblebee" in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." The plot of Michael Bay's third "Transformers" movie revolves around an alien spacecraft that crashed on the moon in the early 1960s.
"Bumblebee" in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." The plot of Michael Bay's third "Transformers" movie revolves around an alien spacecraft that crashed on the moon in the early 1960s. Source: Paramount Pictures via Bloomberg
Lunar lovers, rejoice!
The U.S. may have scrapped its manned moon-landing program, but filmmaker Michael Bay is making sure the Earth's satellite stays in the headlines.
The plot of Bay’s third “Transformers” movie, “Dark of the Moon,” revolves around an alien spacecraft that crashed on the moon in the early 1960s. Though the government hushed up the discovery, it prompted President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to put a man on the moon -- a mission whose secret goal was to investigate the alien incident.
If you think that’s far-fetched, you obviously haven’t seen the first two “Transformers” films, which also involve an interplanetary war between shape-shifting robots. Logic and common sense play very little part in this overblown, earsplitting, monotonous franchise based on a Hasbro toy.
Like its predecessors, “Dark of the Moon” is a long (2 1/2 hours), convoluted story about the showdown between the good Autobots and the evil Decepticons.
Mostly, though, it’s an endless series of computer- generated battle scenes involving robots that can turn into winged missiles, machine-gun-shooting monsters and other weapons of mass destruction. (This one is in 3-D, which makes everything appear bigger if not better.)
Bay tries to spice up the action with globe-trotting settings in Russia, Africa, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, where the famous statue of Honest Abe at the Lincoln Memorial gets blown to smithereens. Chicago’s Trump Tower glass skyscraper gets knocked sideways, which is actually an architectural improvement.
Victoria’s Secret Model
“Dark of the Moon” features many returnees from the first two “Transformers” movies: Shia LaBeouf as a young go-getter who protects the Autobots; John Turturro as a hyper, paranoid spy; and Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as military commanders waging war against the Decepticons.
LaBeouf has no discernible talent. Turturro has plenty, though he’s clearly picking up a paycheck here.
Gone is bombshell Megan Fox as LaBeouf’s girlfriend, replaced by statuesque Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, an English model whose main acting experience has been in Victoria’s Secret commercials and TV shows.
Other series newcomers are John Malkovich as LaBeouf’s control-freak boss at an aerospace company, Frances McDormand as a dictatorial national security chief, Patrick Dempsey as a handsome tycoon with a priceless classic-car collection and Leonard Nimoy as the voice of scary robot Sentinel Prime.
There’s also a cameo by former astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who once punched a filmmaker for claiming that the moon landings were a hoax. Here he’s in on the moon coverup, proving that Bay can alter anyone’s reality.
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” from Paramount Pictures, opens today across the U.S. Rating: *
What the Stars Mean: **** Excellent *** Good ** Average * Poor (No stars) Worthless
(Rick Warner is the movie critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer on the story: Rick Warner in New York at rwarner1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.
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