Full Moon fever

REVIEW, TAKE TWO: Further reflections on Transformers: Dark of the Moon

LINKS: Daily Herald reviews of TF 1.0, TF 2.0 and TF 3.0

So, yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of these Transformers things — let's not sully the word "movies" by referring to them as such — that keep showing up, like a magazine that you never subscribed to that somehow sneaks into the mailbox every month with your name on the mailing label. It seems obvious to me that these, um, things are worthless — and I apologize for sullying the word "worthless" by referring to them as such. And yet, among the sizeable contingent of people who appear to admire them are a surprising number of actors who really should have better things to do with their precious time. Dark of the Moon brings Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Alan Tudyk and (the horror!) Leonard Nimoy into the fold, while continuing to cling to John Turturro like a toilet paper streamer stuck to the heel of his shoe. Although maybe Turturro should be written off at this point: "I am beneath the enemy scrotum" (from Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) isn't even the most demeaning thing he's ever managed to make himself say in a movie. (Anyone know what Turturro utterance holds the booby prize?) Some directors are like the Sun, imparting life-sustaining energy to the careers of almost every actor they work with. Michael Bay, to extend the metaphor, is like the back-porch light bulb, or maybe even the bug zapper at the corner of the back deck. A new 'Transformers' (thing) eh? Maybe I should have my agent get me the script. I've heard those (things) are popular. Could be good for my caree — BZZZT!! Other observations:

(Un)Fox-y lady: Congratulations, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, you're an actor now. The former Victoria's Secret "angel" inherited the role of Mr. LaBeouf's Cheesecake from Megan Fox after Fox allegedly wore out her welcome by being "difficult" while working on the first two films. Ms. Huntington-Whiteley's first appearance, in the first frame of Dark of the Moon to follow its cheesy prologue, lets you know more or less exactly where Bay stands on the bothersome issue of needing to have women in his movies. If they're conventionally attractive women, then he stands wherever he must to get a creepily lusting "money shot" that will fire up the Internets after the fanboys have a peep. Somewhat amusingly, in most of the frames in the movie where Huntington-Whiteley stands within arm's length of LaBeouf, she appears to loom over him. They're actually the same height ... but Huntington-Whiteley is wearing four-inch heels in every scene.

A most un-Spock-tacular anomaly: I mean, it's not as though William Shatner hasn't occasionally collected a paycheck. (Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous?! Oh Captain, my Captain ... ) And at least Leonard Nimoy had the good sense to not actually show his face in Dark of the Moon. On the other hand, there's no mistaking the, ahem, fascinating vocal register of "Sentinel Prime," the Autobot who turns up on the Moon. Nimoy is 80, so it's at least possible that he didn't entirely realize where he was, or what he was doing.

Get me to the MacGuffin on time: Dark of the Moon is no different from other (things) of its ilk in that there's a tipping point in the big climactic battle that wraps everything up: Once Thing X is accomplished, the fate of humanity will be sealed. It's up to the good guys to prevent Thing X and save the world, but they have to be careful not to do it too soon, or the audience won't be in suspense about the outcome. The reality is that audiences haven't had a moment's doubt of the outcome since sometime back before the Great Depression, but movies still insist on the waiting game. The sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest is loaded with great moments, but one of the best involves Tim Allen and Sigourney Weaver shutting down a self-destruct mechanism on their spaceship moments before it can blow everyone to Kingdom Come. They finish all of the steps to shut it off with about 15 seconds to go, but the countdown to detonation doesn't actually stop until it gets to 00:01. The joke is that the ship they're aboard was designed by an alien race that patterned its entire function after their observations of a Star Trek-like TV show that originated on Earth. Weaver's character gets it first: "It always stops at one on the show." On that show and every other one remotely like it, really.