829 Fair Question.

I saw the third Transformers movie the other day. Like many people have said it was better than the second one and, as I have maintained, that isn’t really an achievement. The first movie was sort of light and stupid and fun. It had all the meteors smashing into buildings that one expects from the directorial style of Micheal Bay. The second one was all of that written like a child trying to explain the first movie to an adult. The third movie is that same kid in high school. There are moments where the soundtrack suddenly breaks into these weepy ballads that are so heavy handed you almost start laughing. And everyone is surveying the carnage in slow motion, because FEELINGS. Which is not to say I didn’t enjoy it. I did. But I enjoyed it in a laughing at way, not a laughing with way.
The movie is also way too long. I say that as someone who believes in an artist’s vision being presented the way they want it presented. That said… I bet you could cut that movie down to an hour and change easily, maybe even less, and not lose any of the “plot”. (He said, raising his fingers to make air quotes.) At one point the humans need to sneak into a city controlled by Decepticons. In order for them to stop the evil plan they try to get a clear shot at another building by going inside one that is about to fall over. They spend about 30 minutes dicking around, falling over, trying to make you give a shit about them. There’s lots of smaller things too. A little subplot with Sam’s weird boss that doesn’t matter springs to mind. It just keeps going and going in an almost masturbatory display of special effects. The whole way people and things are dying left and right and I didn’t give a fuck. The cast is either throw away characters, or super annoying. Two times I actually felt sad. Once when one of the dudes from the first movies gets killed and once when one of the other ones almost gets killed. Not two seconds earlier one of the new robots gets taken out and I WAS GLAD. That is NOT how I should feel about a GOOD GUY! It’s almost like they’re trying to make you hate every character so you don’t have to feel bad if something happens to them.
As long s I’m at it I may as well say this too: the movie is called TRANSFORMERS 3, not whiny human bitches 3. There is never enough stuff happening with the robots. If I want to watch Shia Lebouf fuck up a movie I can watch any of his other movies. Except Holes. Holes was the bomb, yo. (That was just catty. I actually like his performances in most of his films. Even Crystal Skulls.)
I could keep going on about this movie for ages if I actually had it in front of me. This is just the stuff that I didn’t manage to forget when my brain was trying to purge the memories in an attempt to protect itself.

In a related story I started netflixing all the anime they have that has really bad reviews. I ran out of stuff to watch so to fill time between releases of good movies I don’t want to own I’m “enjoying” bad anime. I’ll let you know how that goes.