Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Theatrical Release Date: 2011 06 28 (USA - 3D) / 2011 06 29 (USA) / 2011 08 26 (USA - IMAX 3D)

UPC: 097363560449

Studio: Paramount

MPAA Rating: PG13   Contains:[Profanity, Sexual Situations, Sci-Fi Violence]

Summary: The interstellar war between the Autobots and Decepticons shifts into overdrive following the discovery of Sentinel Prime (voice of Leonard Nimoy) in this sequel from director Michael Bay. Only a precious handful of officials in the government and military realize that the 1969 moon mission was the result of an event that threatened profound repercussions for the entire human race. When the Apollo 11 astronauts discover the wrecked remains of Sentinel Prime on the surface of our natural satellite, they bring him back to planet Earth. But Sentinel Prime wasn't the only alien object on the moon, and when a malevolent new enemy makes its presence known, only the Autobots can save humankind from certain destruction. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Science Fiction

Awards: Best Sound Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound Mixing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Visual Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound Mixing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Visual Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound Mixing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Visual Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Sound Mixing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Visual Effects – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Features: cc

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Format: DVD

Release Date: 09/30/2011

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 154 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French,Spanish

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish,Portuguese

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Transformers: Dark of the Moon
1. Scene 1 [8:51]
2. Scene 2 [4:03]
3. Scene 3 [1:30]
4. Scene 4 [3:48]
5. Scene 5 [2:05]
6. Scene 6 [8:26]
7. Scene 7 [2:26]
8. Scene 8 [5:03]
9. Scene 9 [8:59]
10. Scene 10 [6:34]
11. Scene 11 [4:40]
12. Scene 12 [5:13]
13. Scene 13 [2:25]
14. Scene 14 [2:05]
15. Scene 15 [6:37]
16. Scene 16 [5:53]
17. Scene 17 [:18]
18. Scene 18 [4:32]
19. Scene 19 [5:03]
20. Scene 20 [6:27]
21. Scene 21 [7:30]
22. Scene 22 [6:27]

Cammila Collar

For those of you just tuning in to the Transformers franchise -- this thing has been all over the map. The first movie was pleasing to middle-schoolers, '80s cartoon geeks, and existing fans of PG-13 action movies. The second one was similarly passable to super-fans, but fell victim even further to the earlier movie's flaws, like poorly edited action sequences and a butt-load of convoluted plot assumedly added to fill up an unnecessarily protracted runtime. Well, with the third film in the franchise, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, director Michael Bay -- while admittedly hateable for taking movies about giant robots so god-dang seriously -- has redeemed the series, and then some.

Before we go any further, let's make something clear: lost cinephiles in argyle sweater vests and berets who wander into Transformers 3 while looking for an Ingmar Bergman festival will not be converted into action fans. This is still a movie made for people who are interested in paying money to see giant robots that turn into cars fight with other giant robots -- that turn into jets. Does this premise appeal to you? Awesome! Please continue reading.

The movie begins with a prologue sequence, which sets up the story. A race of mechanical aliens called Transformers, ousted from their own planet, Cybertron, inhabit the Earth, blending in with human society when they so choose by changing from their massive humanoid-robot forms into cars, trucks, planes, etc. The good ones are called the Autobots, and as we learn in a voice-over narrative by leader Optimus Prime (still voiced by the original voice-of-God actor from the cartoon series, Peter Cullen) over a cool Charlie's Angels-style intro montage, now they work with the U.S. military, offering protection to human society from the bad Transformers, the Decepticons, who are always trying to enslave humanity for one reason or another. We also get a crazy alternate-history of the Apollo 11 space mission, in which we learn that the whole program was created to retrieve a powerful old Autobot named Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy (!), who's been hanging out on the lunar surface in sleep mode since he crash-landed there trying to flee a war with the Decepticons back on Cybertron.

This is as good a place as any to talk about how sweet the visual effects are. The CG is impressively real and completely seamless, whether we're exploring Sentinel's Space Jockey-style digs on the moon, or watching fake archival footage of JFK meeting with Robert McNamara through the use of...animation? Look-alikes? You can't really tell, and that's the whole point. The gap is closed on the suspension of disbelief (well, visually at least) as well as the Uncanny Valley. Additionally, the Transformers' character design and the way the bots are filmed is a hundred times clearer than in previous films. Fight sequences in the earlier movies often seemed inscrutable, with the camera jerking too awkwardly between nearly identical animated foes, all rendered in the same gunmetal gray, and impossible to tell apart, let alone track throughout an entire combat scene. But this problem is addressed in Dark of the Moon. The camera takes a careful, measured view of each scene, and animated characters are given ample screen space to brawl -- with their identifying characteristics in full view, so the melee doesn't become a mishmash of titanium-colored movement.

Perhaps Bay made his action sequences more comprehensible because it was clear how jumbled they were in the last movie, but it's also likely that he took such care because Dark of the Moon was choreographed and designed from top to bottom as a 3D movie -- and that's a good thing. Though the market has become saturated with titles where the 3D effects were added after the fact, noticeable in only a few shoe-horned moments, Transformers 3 is meticulously crafted to make rollicking use of the technology at every turn, with increasingly inventive modes for keeping it fresh, like escorting some flying-squirrel-style paratroopers on a drop through the Decepticon-besieged city of Chicago, or following the heroes as they scramble from one end to another of a vivisected all-glass office building, fighting gravity and evil robots as the top half of the building slides off of the other like the Leaning Tower.

The 3D is also used to great effect in our introductory scene for Victoria's Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who first appears onscreen as the camera follows her butt up the stairs in stunning three dimensions. Huntington-Whiteley is as adequate an actress as her predecessor, Megan Fox, and despite some weird continuity issues with her shoes (who changes from one pair of heels to another while infiltrating an NSA building?), she does a perfectly fine job as the resident hot girl in the series. Likewise, cast members such as Hugo Weaving, John Turturro, Josh Duhamel, and, of course, Shia LaBeouf turn in fine performances alongside a mammoth number of cast mates like John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Patrick Dempsey, Alan Tudyk (Wash from Firefly in a scene-stealing supporting role), Buzz Aldrin, and Ken Jeong (from The Hangover), not to mention top-tier voice actors Tom Kenny, Frank Welker, Charles Adler, and, of course, Cullen. If that sounds like a lot of people, that's because, once again, Michael Bay has two and a half hours to fill, and he can't spend all of it on golden-hour car-commercial shots of dirt roads winding through California hillsides at dusk.

But you have to hand it to Bay: even though no movie based on a toy/cartoon franchise needs to be this long, he was determined to prove that he could fill his prescribed runtime with so much cool stuff that you never get bored, and even though he's kind of a jerk for doing that instead of just cutting 40 minutes, he still accomplished his goal. He's made one of the best 3D movies to date, and certainly the best film in this series. We have to give him credit for that -- or we can just give the credit to Optimus Prime. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Ian Bryce  Producer 
Don Murphy  Producer 
Steven Spielberg  Executive Producer 
Michael Bay  Director 
Michael Bay  Executive Producer 
Ehren Kruger  Screenwriter 
Steve Jablonsky  Composer (Music Score) 
Lorenzo Di Bonaventura  Producer 
Mark Vahradian  Executive Producer 
Brian Goldner  Executive Producer 
Tom Desanto  Producer 
Shia LaBeouf  Actor 
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley  Actor 
Josh Duhamel  Actor 
John Turturro  Actor 
Tyrese Gibson  Actor 
Patrick Dempsey  Actor 
Frances McDormand  Actor 
John Malkovich  Actor 
Kevin Dunn  Actor 
Julie White  Actor 
Alan Tudyk  Actor 
Ken Jeong  Actor 
Glenn Morshower  Actor 
Lester '"Rasta" Speight  Actor 
Buzz Aldrin  Actor 
Bill O'Reilly  Actor 
Ravil Isyanov  Actor 
Dustin Dennard  Actor 
Markiss McFadden Jr.  Actor 
Chris Robinson  Actor 
Nick Bickle  Actor 
Ajay James  Actor 
Brett Lynch  Actor 
Scott C. Roe  Actor 
James Weston II  Actor 
Brian Call  Actor 
Aaron Garrido  Actor 
Mikal A. Vega  Actor 
Kenny Sheard  Actor 
Josh Kelly  Actor 
Keiko Agena  Actor 
Yasen Peyankov  Actor 
Brett Stimely  Actor 
John H. Tobin  Actor 
Drew Pillsbury  Actor 
Patrick Pankhurst  Actor 
Larry Clarke  Actor 
Tom Virtue  Actor 
Thomas Crawford  Actor 
Alan Pietruszewski  Actor 
Michael Daniel Cassady  Actor 
Peter Murnik  Actor 
Don Jeanes  Actor 
Cory Tucker  Actor 
Lindsey Ginter  Actor 
David St. James  Actor 
Mitch Bromwell  Actor 
Elya Baskin  Actor 
Eugene Alper  Actor 
Inna Korobkina  Actor 
Zoran Radanovich  Actor 
Kathleen Gati  Actor 
Annie O'Donnell  Actor 
Chris Sheffield  Actor 
Ken Takemoto  Actor 
Michael Loeffelholz  Actor 
Mindy Sterling  Actor 
Scott Krinsky  Actor 
Katherine Sigismund  Actor 
Maile Flanagan  Actor 
Darren O'Hare  Actor 
Jack Axelrod  Actor 
Rich Hutchman  Actor 
Meredith Monroe  Actor 
Charlotte Labadie  Actor 
Christian Baha  Actor 
Jennifer Williams  Actor 
Danielle Fornarelli  Actor 
Danny McCarthy  Actor 
John Turk  Actor 
Peter A. Kelly  Actor 
Igbal Theba  Actor 
Anthony Azizi  Actor 
Sammy Sheik  Actor 
John S. McAfee  Actor 
Jay Gates  Actor 
Rebecca Cooper  Actor 
Bone Crusher  Actor 
Peter Cullen  Actor 
Hugo Weaving  Actor 
Leonard Nimoy  Actor 
Charlie Adler  Actor 
Jess Harnell  Actor 
Robert Foxworth  Actor 
James Remar  Actor 
Francesco Quinn  Actor 
George Coe  Actor 
George Coe  Actor 
Tom Kenny  Actor 
Frank Welker  Actor 
Frank Welker  Actor 
Reno Wilson  Actor 
Ron Bottitta  Actor 
Greg Berg  Actor 
Keith Szarabajka  Actor 
John DiMaggio  Actor 
Ron Bottitta  Actor 
John DiMaggio  Actor 

Country: USA