MOVIE POETRY. A couple of weeks ago I shared with my brother my idea that the highest form of poetry nowadays is movies. When you think about it, poetry is about awakening your mind and your feeling towards some particular theme or idea, and I think that modern movies do that and they use all the other medium of communicating information and emotion – The set, the scenery, the lighting, cinematography, costumes, the OST music, and fundamentally, the script, the casting, the acting and the directorial and editing skills. The movies which I have found to be beautiful to the point of visceral poetry are such well known pictures as The Godfather (Coppola), O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Cohen Brothers), Glengarry Glen Ross (James Foley), Sense & Sensibilities (Ang Lee), Leon / The Professional (Luc Besson), The Green Mile (Frank Darabont) and Green Card (Peter Weir), to name but a few.
So we have some movies that can evoke passion and poetry at its highest form of human expression. And then again we have Micheal Bey’s latest in The Transformers’ trilogy entitled Transformers: Dark of the Moon. I watched it yesterday and I don’t like it much.
PLOT? I shall not talk much about it since the plot appears to have been cooked up medium rare. I will give just 2 examples here. PLOT DEATH 1 - The movie would have us believe that Sam Witwiky (Shia LeBeouf), having saved the world twice in the 2 previous movies, was awarded honours by President Obama and the British government, and having made his way through an Ivy League university found it impossible to find a decent job. So much so that he swallowed his (much injured) male pride to accept a job as a mailroom boy (!) from his dishy (ish) new girlfriend’s dashing boss, Dylan Gould (played by McDreamy himself, Patrick Dempsey). PLOT DEATH 2 – Coming to the end, Sam’s girl goaded Megatron (Yes, mighty Megatron himself) to do something rather dramatic (well, I cannot tell you what it is since it might spoil your ‘enjoyment’ of watching the movie). Man, these robots may be technologically advanced, but boy, they are dumb. 
SUPERHUMANS – And it also appears that dear old Sam is a mutant, because only a super human can survive the sheer physical trauma he encountered when he gets up close and personal with one of the nasty Decepticons. Hmm. Maybe he is an alien too. If you have seen the trailer, you would have also seen one of the mega CGI scenes when one Decepticon (ShockWave) is literally ripping a high rise tower apart, and Sam, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteleyl and some other non-descript extras are flung across the floor, and sent skimming down the side of the collapsing building(!). And after all that, nay a sprained ankle amongst these super lucky people. *Urk*
SCRIPT AND ACTING – I don’t have the heart to blame anyone because I think Shia (in Suburbia) is a competent actor, and John Turturro, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand are amazing thespians. So I blame the script. It sucks. PLAUSIBILITY. Of course in reality there are no alien robots on planet earth, taking their blood (oil?) feud from their devastated home planet down to earth. I can suspend reality for that, indeed I cherish the enjoyment I had with the 1st movie and even the 2nd movie (just about). But this time around Michael is simply asking too much of me. Even in a comic superhero movie adaptation, the action sequences, even if physically an impossibility, must be set in a background of plausible human interaction and character development.
I am giving this movie a 2 out of 5. Actually I wanted to give it a 3 (for the awesome CGI), but I am dicing one point out because Megan Fox is not here anymore.
I KNOW YOU ARE GONNA WATCH IT ANYWAY. But I know that you will still watch it. Because it is a Transformers movie. And when the closing credits trailed down the screen, there was even applause (!) amongst some of the cinemagoers last night. So may be it is to your taste just as it was Mika's. But it certainly isn’t mine.
Have a lovely day, sunshine.
Pax Taufiqa.
Earlier Movie Reviews - The Green Lantern / Inside Job
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