Something Positive About Transformers?

Over the weekend while consuming the summer season’s first cinematic tour de force, I saw the new trailer for the next Transformers movie.  It kills me to say this, but the trailer was really good. Maybe it was my overall jovial mood or maybe it was the theater packed with cheering moviegoers that made the difference. Or maybe, just maybe, Transformers 3 might actually be a decent movie? (Gasp!)

Anyone who follows my blogging, or knows me in person, is aware of my utter disdain for the filmmaker behind the Transformers movies, Michael Bay. Despite the fact that the Transformers movies have made gazillions of dollars, they are soulless, inane, disorienting messes. They are all spectacle with no heart, no trace of a coherent story or well drawn characters.  Things I consider to be essential ingredients in a movie.

I’ve been ragging on T-Form 3 since it was announced they were doing another one, especially about the fact that it was being shot in 3D. I can’t think of a more vertigo-inducing experience than a Michael Bay in the third dimension. Bay’s knack for using quick cuts and shaky close ups makes his flat movies hard to watch. However, Bay has said that he needed to stop moving his camera so much in order to use 3D. This is encouraging.

But Bay has not yet earned my money.

Bay has also been talking a lot of smack about Transformers 2 lately. (Although it’s easy to come out and say your movie sucks after it’s been universally panned by nearly everyone.) Bay promises that T-Form 3 will be better than T-Form 2. While that’s all well and good, it doesn't fill me with confidence.  Just because Revenge of the Sith is better than the other two prequels doesn’t mean it’s a good movie. To Bay, the high bar seems to have been set with the first Transformers movie. For me, that’s not high enough. I don’t just want Transformers 3 to be better than 2. I want it to be better than 1.

Admittedly my interest is piqued by the new T-Form trailer, but beast we forget that the original Transformers movie had a great trailer too—a trailer good enough to get my butt in the seat. And that one didn’t turn out so good.

For the time being, I will temper my feelings about Transformers 3. I believe Michael Bay when he says he’s making a movie better than the last one.  But I don’t have hope that he will completely correct course and make a decent movie.  I would love to be wrong about this.  But I’m going to have to let the public convince me of that first, before I can truly buy into the promise of the trailer.