Friday, Film4, 6pm
Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) is, at its core, a love letter to the grandiosity of Saturday morning cartoons — the ones that convinced a generation that giant robots punching each other could solve any geopolitical crisis. The third installment in the Transformers franchise takes the stakes beyond Earth, using the Moon as both a battleground and a plot device to propel the Cybertronian saga. With more explosions per capita than a Highland Hogmanay gone wrong, the film marries over-the-top action with a convoluted tale of alien betrayal, corporate malfeasance, and, naturally, the looming extinction of humanity.
The story revolves around the revelation that the 1969 Apollo 11 mission wasn't just about taking one small step for man but rather about discovering the wreckage of the Ark, a Cybertronian vessel containing the mighty Sentinel Prime (voiced with Shakespearean gravitas by Leonard Nimoy). The stakes spiral higher than Optimus Prime’s smokestacks as Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) once again stumbles into saving the world. The plot might be as tangled as Megatron’s wiring, but it delivers set pieces that have no rivals, including a sequence where Chicago is leveled in a way that would make Roland Emmerich blush.
But let’s talk about that score. Steve Jablonsky’s work for Dark of the Moon is a thunderous testament to the power of cinematic music. The main themes are filled with cascading brass and pounding percussion, balanced by haunting choral motifs that evoke the grandeur of alien worlds and the tragedy of lost Cybertron. Of particular note is "It's Our Fight," which soars with a sense of heroic desperation, perfectly encapsulating the film’s apocalyptic battles. Fans of Jablonsky will recognize echoes of his mentor Hans Zimmer, especially in the sweeping crescendos that mirror the awe and chaos on-screen. Like Bay’s direction, the soundtrack isn’t subtle — but it is unforgettable.
For all its narrative bombast, Dark of the Moon succeeds as a chaotic symphony of sci-fi destruction, a spectacle to be experienced rather than analyzed. If you’ve ever wondered what a space-age battlefield would sound like set to the operatic fury of clanging metal and soaring strings, this film delivers in spades. A word to the wise: brace yourself for some gratuitous slow-motion shots, gratuitous patriotism, and, unfortunately, gratuitous human subplots. But hey, when you’ve got Optimus Prime rallying the troops with the kind of speeches William Wallace might envy, who’s complaining?