Transformers too long, easily forgotten

It's a sad statement that I was excited to watch this movie after last week's disastrous viewing of Bad Teacher, but that's the truth. I was excited to watch anything after that.

It's even sadder that Transformers: Dark of the Moon is exactly the movie I expected it to be — all sound and fury, signifying nothing. It has nothing new to offer the world. It is a rehash of the first two movies in the series that in and of themselves were basically non-stories. It is a regurgitation of a bad meal.

To recap the entire franchise to this point: Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is the point man on this planet for a race of living and sentient machines called the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen). These metallic aliens are in a galactic war with their archenemies, the Decepticons, led by Megatron (voiced by Hugo Weaving).

That's pretty much all you need to know. In this movie, we dive briefly back to the year 1961 when President John F. Kennedy learns of a UFO crash on the moon. The craft is called the Ark and its only inhabitant is the lifeless Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy). It's the former leader of the Autobots who was trying to save a number of pillars that would form a bridge as a way of transporting matter between two points in space.

Actually the plot is indecipherable unless you read some kind of novelization of the story. Even the Wikipedia entry that summarizes this two-and-a-half-hour monstrosity goes on for almost 900 words. Sam has graduated from college and has a new girlfriend named Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) but he still has trouble getting a job. Somehow that matters so much that this subplot occupies the first 60 minutes until the action really begins.

After that, it's practically non-stop. My daughter described it best by saying, “It's just like one long commercial.”

It's too long and too boring, even for young audiences. There's really no substance to any of it, just endless action sequences of robots turning into pretty cars turning back into robots, all the while shooting and fighting for some reason. It makes me wonder if pure escapist fantasy like this is also the equivalent of purely vacuous culture. It's so mindless it could probably qualify as a stupefying agent. In much the same way that alcohol kills brain cells, Transformers movies kill intelligence.

Take a good, long look at what's in store before you buy your ticket. All of the characters are unpleasant or offensive. All that is required of LaBeouf is be the Everyman, meaning have as moderate a personality as possible.

Former Victoria's Secret model Huntington-Whiteley is only in this movie for her looks. Her only discernible talents are physical and she adds nothing to the entire experience.

What's the point of making an action film based on a line of children's toys? There's obvious built-in marketing and merchandising opportunities. The potential audience base is huge because there will be many people, likely the key demographic (men between 18 and 35), who fondly remember their own experiences with the products that were first introduced to mainstream North American culture in the early to mid 1980s. These men, now with their own disposable income and lack of critical regard for lowest common denominator entertainment, have already helped this film to sail high with huge box office returns in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Of course, they are more likely to bring their own children along as well, just as I did.

It's possible and entirely probable that we are all fools. Certainly being immersed in these movies by Michael ‘Mayhem' Bay has not enriched my mind and enlightened my soul. It has only served to lighten my wallet, and all that I've been given in return are headaches, nausea and a diminished opinion of the Hollywood machine.