6 Movies with Giant Freaking Robots, In Honor of ‘Pacific Rim’ Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Movie #2 – Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Year – 2011

Director Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Rock) is known, and widely criticized, for his brand of mindless, overblown (though commercially successful) action films. And while he has always subscribed to the theory that “bigger is better,” this time out he’s toned things down a notch. Of course, where Bay is concerned, “toned down” is relative term. After all, this is still a movie about sentient robots punching each other.

In previous installments, he mistook “speed” for “action” resulting in action scenes that were a frenetic mess of constant movement. Even exposition scenes were filmed in this manner. The action scenes are no longer impenetrable and his non-stop camera swooshes have mercifully ceased. He’s even refrained from speeding up the “transforming;” instead choosing to spotlight many of the changes in slow-motion, thereby preventing the kaleidoscopic effect of the last film.

Now, before this starts to sound like an unmitigated success allow me to, um….mitigate. The film is still at least a half-hour longer than it needs to be. While the action scenes are fun, they tend to become exhausting as they blow past the twenty minute mark. The climatic action sequence was almost 40-minutes long. True, the story is better but all that means is that it rises to the level of “serviceable.” And, of course, it still stars Shia LaBeouf. It’s easily the strongest of the three films, but that’s a lot like being the most talented Kardashian.