By Daniel Rutledge
Yesterday I was lucky enough to see a 20 minute preview of Transformers: Dark of the Moon in all its 3D glory.
Much has been made of the way this third Transformers film uses 3D. Basically, they’re saying that this movie does it ‘right’, like Avatar did, and like most films fail to do.
Transformers director Michael Bay is a convert to 3D – he had previously dismissed 3D movies as ‘gimmicks’. But that was before Avatar was released and since then Bay has become a big fan, and a bosom buddy of James Cameron.
From what I saw in the preview, fans should celebrate the fact that Bay is now a 3D director. He has produced a brilliant looking movie that does indeed put 3D technology to great use to heighten the experience.
I want to start by getting a few of things out of the way. Firstly, if you haven’t yet seen the Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer, watch it now as I’ll be referring to things in it.
Secondly, I am not a Transformers fan. Like many people I hated the second movie. It was just abysmal. Unlike many people, I also didn’t care much for the crazily cheesy first Transformers film either (sorry Kate Rodger). So I am approaching the third movie with hopes of finally being won over to the world of CG robot Bayhem.
Thirdly, I am not anti-3D like heaps of people are. It has been put to bad use (Clash of the Titans, ugh), but I love 3D experiences at the movies. Sure, I don’t like that it seems to make some films a bit darker, but I don’t think it deserves the venom directed at it by some people (I’m looking at you, David Farrier).
The Transformers: Dark of the Moon preview opened with a prologue, first showing Autobots and Decepticons at war on Cybertron. Immediately the graphics are impressive, and so is the 3D. It’s bright, it’s in super high definition and it looks fantastic. The CG is just so advanced and the real-life physics it imitates is so spot-on, the result is brilliant.
The secret reason for the moon landing story that is shown in the trailer then plays out for the next five minutes, mixing historical news footage with scenes they’ve shot for the movie. The gist of it is that some Transformers crash-landed on the moon and America sent Neil Armstrong and the boys up there to have a looksie. We don’t learn much more that that, but it is pretty cool to see. I like when movies toy with US history like this, as we saw recently in X-Men: First Class and a few years back in Watchmen.
What followed in the preview was a montage of various action bits from the film, showcasing just how amazing it all looks, especially in 3D. You know a movie studio is excited with what they’re releasing if they hold preview days like this and, well, as much of an unbeliever as I may be, it pretty much sold me. The film looks great. Looks great… I of course have no idea yet of how great the whole thing is, but it looks great at least.
The most exciting segment I saw today was definitely the airbound bits of an urban battle in Chicago. Bay showed off the fact that they strapped 3D cameras to the heads of actual skydivers for part of the shoot and had them filming while falling. The skydiving characters have special flying cape type attachments that let them fly with direction, almost horizontally, making the scene amazing. They even fly through a burning hole in a building. It’s terrific.
The least exciting bits were the giant robot worm things coiling around skyscrapers and making them fall down. You can see a bit of that in the trailer and it just looks, well, too CG-ey, as silly as that might sound in the context. The dragon-bots are also a bit of a laugh, but I am still keen as to see them on the big screen as dragons are one of the greatest things ever.
The battle in Chicago looks as though it will be a major part of the film and I am excited to see it. Sure, the giant worm-bots might look a bit dumb, but other parts of the urban combat were astonishing.
Thankfully there was very little Shia LaBeouf in the preview I saw. That guy is terrible. Sadly, there was very little Rosie Huntington-Whiteley either. She’s the new incredi-babe that is replacing Megan Fox from the previous two films and is one of the most promising things about Dark of the Moon.
Michael Bay is your classic American hotshot director who loves sports cars and dating young models. Even though he has made some terrible movies, the man knows how to film beautiful women – for proof just watch Megan Fox working on her car’s engine or lying on her motorbike from the last two movies. I can’t wait to see the equivalent Huntington-Whiteley scene in 3D in Dark of the Moon.
The alien robots do still talk funny, saying ridiculous things about human “freedom” and “don’t lose faith in yourselves” etc. But if I was seven years old I would love that stuff.
For me the most promising thing about the action sequences is wide shots that last for more than a second. While some of the previous Transformers movies did have impressive action scenes, they also had a lot that were made up entirely of ultra-fast close-ups with lots of loud noise. Not cool.
There’s not much of that in Dark of the Moon, from the looks. Just see the nice long tracking shot in the trailer of Optimus spinning down the street smashing stuff, it’s awesome. The action shown in the preview was clearly viewable too, including a very long slow-motion shot of Bumblebee changing from car form to robot form, sending Sam flying through the air. The shot continues with Bumblebee knocking various flying objects out of the way and finally transforming back to car form, with Sam back in the front seat, screaming like a little girl. It’s way over the top, but it’s pretty cool.
So with better action sequences, and the Little Black Sam-bots, silly old pirate-bot and Mafia-bot from Revenge of the Fallen getting chucked out with Megan Fox, some of the more annoying things about Transformers are gone, and Dark of the Moon could potentially be on of the most enjoyable action flicks of the year.
If only they’d gotten rid of LaBeouf too.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon opens in New Zealand cinemas June 30.
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