234-2
Hasbro- Transformers- Dark of the Moon: Sideswipe
Rating of worst to best of the Transformers movies continued; see review 208-2, 213-2, 217-2, 223-2, 226-2 & 230-2 for previous instalments:
Transformers Movie Rating #5: Transformers: Dark of the Moon: The Good
I think Transformers fans had high hopes for the 3rd instalment of the live action series and after Revenge of the Fallen can you blame us? However I’m not so sure that DOTM really had the power to save the franchise and solidified its place as a silly, loud, bombastic movie series that was aimed at the undiscerning masses who were more interested in explosions, action and sexy ladies than good story telling. It’s too bad that Bay and company weren’t aware that they were not mutually exclusive.
So being 3rd from the bottom means that there has to be some good things right?
Firstly I liked the addition of the Wreckers, the 3 suped up Nascar boys who were tasked with the maintenance of the Autobots spaceship and while normally I do not care for NASCAR racing I did dig the look of these guys from the start. Unfortunately they were featured rather sparingly, likely due to the cost of CGI on new fancy robots, but also I didn’t really get why they had British accents. I suppose It might have been in poor taste if they doubled down on southern accents, but it didn’t need to be in a mean way.
Secondly, there was a linear storyline that actually made sense. Sure some of the details are a bit hazy and it basically throws out all the back story from Revenge of the Fallen, but I could see this as being a story fright from out of the G1 cartoon and that’s my relative low bar for storytelling on these “Based on a toyline” movies. I also appreciated the Sentinel Prime, double cross twist and legitimately did not know about it going into the movie for the first time. .
The story made sense, decent double cross,
Lastly, and probably more importantly given Bay’s trademark Movie style, was this movie was packed with legitimately good action scenes. Yes there was the typical explosions and car chases, but perhaps the piece de resistance was the flight suit sequence through downtown Chicago. Taking real life, red bull chugging, life insurance nightmares and tossing them out of a plane in a city environment is next level. And while some of the sequences are clearly CGI, kudos to them for using real life stunt people as it would have been safer, easier and cheaper to just rely on the special effects team for it.
Pros: I’ve liked Sideswipe from the jump and thought that the new convertible model was a pretty sleek look. The transformation is pretty simplistic and straight forward, especially if you are familiar with the general engineering for Sideswipe. Additionally the robot mode looks the part with the trademark wheeled feet and forearm blades.
Cons: Unfortunately there is one thing that is holding this figure back and I’m not sure that this is a defect on mine or a widely known issue, the trunk flap will not stay connected in robot mode and just has to kind of sit there in the backpack. Looks to be a design flaw with the plastic and its so annoying. Perhaps they could have included a bit more plastic on the tab holding it in place from the gigantic, spring loaded plastic blade that makes no sense and add no playability whatsoever to the figure overall.
