‘Transformers: Dark of the Moon’ continues trend of extensive, meaningless action

In an honest man's world, there would be no world hunger. There would be no use for weapons, ego or greedy consumption of mass resources. Also, in an honest man's world, there would be no Michael Bay. I wonder sometimes if that would be a good or a bad thing. The right and the left side of the brain fight for dominance daily. Our higher intellect wrestles back and forth with our basic instincts. It becomes increasingly important, if we wish to function in civilized society, to best our lizard brainstem. However, Michael Bay exploits those lower levels of consciousness quite well, as seen in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon."

We live in our dimension of escapism. In our best of times, we can take ourselves quite seriously to the point of neuroticism. And at other intervals, we give in and all we want to see is carnage and melodrama that could never exist in our own lives. "Dark of the Moon" is the precise movie for what we anticipated in volume (apparently).

The film is not exactly a clone of the other films, but distinctly similar. By itself, as a sequel, it's not a surprising result. But the way this is differentiated from other fare is that it is distinctly marked by its creator, Bay. Wide camera pans, soaring shots of vistas, tight, unintelligible action sequences … and yes, airplanes and helicopters silhouetted by a sunset are all here. Mr. Bay has crafted something quite wonderful in fact: a film that is completely based on feeling, or rather, intuition.

Devoid of any real purpose or need, the whole of the "Transformers" franchise has strung itself along on the simple premise of audience optimism. "Dark of the Moon" is no different as it seems to wander in and out of itself as a side effect of the director's complete, indifferent comfort with the material. Three pictures and several years deep with the same characters and objectives is enough for even a pyro to second guess the means to the end.

Yes, it's entertaining in the vein of shut-off-your-mind-and-watch cinema, and its gusto and pension for upping the ante at every turn is affecting, even admirable. But the sweltering heat doesn't need to be beaten away with fiery explosions in a cold theater.

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is not in any more of a pleasant disposition with new girlfriend Carly (the Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who is surprisingly more adept an actress than Megan Fox). Living in Washington, D.C., he wishes he were still with Bumblebee and the other Autobots. But without any Decepticons to fight, they're forced to basically be the United States' big gun in foreign diplomacy. Soon, things change and giant robots smash each other like we imagine they always will. Sparks fly, frames speed up and slow down at any given moment of consequence and foley artists get cramps while trying to replicate the sounds of thirty different kinds of metals crashing and banging.

The plot, while more developed than the headache that was "Revenge of the Fallen," is still tenth-billed behind the likes of action, Mr. LaBeouf, Huntington-Whiteley's lips and several unnecessary comic relief characters. It seemed impossible to outdo Ramon Rodriguez, John Turturro and the "vaguely" racist robots Skidds and Mudflap from the last film, but John Malkovich, Ken Jeong and two tinier Autobots manage just fine. Their short screen time is the only thing I can think of for the existence of a loving and just god, but their immediate, however, brief appearance is enough to let me believe in a spiteful and much more powerful Satan.

None of it is anymore comprehensible than the previous two installments. None of the action is any less trivial. A resolution is just as clear cut and dangling as it ever was. The same rhythm back and forth. We owe it nothing, and yet we take so much of our time to see it. Running over 2 1/2 hours, I found myself in complete disconnect with earlier scenes that help set a precedent for the last 45 minutes of pure, urban destruction masturbation.

This is not one movie — it's several strung together at odd sections of the body. Complete disorientation shouldn't drag this much. The cutting room floor must be bare of fat. There's a lot to be trimmed and a lot that seems tacked on. It's not a complete mess like "Green Lantern," mainly because "Green Lantern" was a film by committee. "Transformers" is a movie by an ego-centric ONE.

An honest man may not need a movie about giant aliens destroying the planet, but the honest man doesn't need a lot of things. From time to time, we all consume what we don't demand simply because it exists. It's impossible to say it's no fault of our own for "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." We asked for it when we became acclimated to being human and needing to take in some bullshit now and again. It lets us appreciate better, more important things.

spenseralbertsen@dailynebraskan.com

Rating: C