Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye (film)

Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye is a 2011 American science fiction action film directed by D. J. Caruso and based on the Transformers toy line. First released on June 23, 2011, it is the third installment of the live-action Transformers film series film series and the sequel to 2009's Revenge of the Fallen, as well as the eleventh film in the Hasbro Cinematic Universe. It is the first film in the series not to be directed by Michael Bay, though he served as the film's producer. The film's story is set three years after the events of the 2009 film, and follows the warring Autobots and Decepticons as they join forces after the all power Transformer enemy Unicron arrives to destroy the universe.

The film stars Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Chelsey Reist, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand. The script was written by Mission: Impossible II writers Robert Towne, Ronald D. Moore, and Brannon Braga. More Than Meets The Eye employed both regular 35mm film cameras and specially-developed 3-D cameras, with filming locations in Chicago, Florida, Indiana, Milwaukee, Moscow, and Washington, D.C.. The film was rendered specifically for 3-D, and the visual effects involved more complex robots which took longer to render.

In May 2011, it was announced that Paramount would move Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye 's release date of July 1 to June 29 in order to monitor an early response to footage. Exclusive early premieres in select 3-D and IMAX theaters took place June 28, 2011, one night before worldwide release in 2-D and 3-D (including IMAX 3D) formats—each featuring Dolby Surround 7.1 sound.

Critical reception of the film was mixed with several critics calling it better than Revenge of the Fallen and praising the film's visuals, Henry Jackman's musical score, and 3-D action sequences, while others criticizing its writing, acting, and length. But despite the reviews, More Than Meets The Eye grossed US$1.12 billion worldwide, and is currently the 13th-highest-grossing film of all time, the second-highest-grossing film of 2011 (behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2), the highest-grossing film in the Transformers series, and the 10th film to gross over $1 billion. Like the 2007 film, it was nominated for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects at the 84th Academy Awards. A crossover, Transformers vs. G.I. Joe was released on April 17, 2015. A fourth film Transformers: The Last Knight is set to be released in 2017. A fifth film serving as a Bumblebee spin-off is scheduled for a 2018 release. A sixth film, serving as the sixth main entry Transformers 5 is scheduled for a 2019 release.

Plot
Sixty-five million years ago, two Transformer brothers; Primus and Unicron and a race of aliens called the "Quintessons" begin wiping out most life on Earth. Primus berates his brother for his dark terror and creates the thirteen Primes and they defeat Unicron, casting him into an unknown part of space. In 1961, the Ark, a Cybertronian spacecraft carrying an invention capable of ending the war between the Autobots and Decepticons, crash lands on the far side of Earth's Moon. The crash is detected on Earth by NASA, and President John F. Kennedy authorizes a mission to put a man on the Moon as a cover for investigating the craft. In 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 lands on the Moon to explore the craft.

In the present, the Autobots assist the United States military in preventing conflicts around the globe. During a mission to Chernobyl to investigate suspected alien technology, Optimus Prime finds a fuel cell from the Ark, discovering it had survived its journey from Cybertron. The Autobots are attacked by Shockwave who manages to escape. After learning of the top-secret mission to the Moon, the Autobots travel there to explore the Ark. There they discover a comatose Sentinel Prime – Optimus' predecessor as leader of the Autobots – and his creation, the Pillars, a means of establishing a Space Bridge between two points to teleport matter. Cemetery Wind, an elite unit, formed by paranoid Dr. Hideki Yakamoski and team leader James Savoy, is tasked to hunt down both the Autobots and Decepticons. With help from the Cybertronian bounty hunter Lockdown, they ambush and brutally kill Skids and Mudflap. However, their primary targets are Optimus Prime and Megatron, both whom Lockdown personally want alive.

In South Asia, Sam Witwicky, now a Navy SEAL (at the rank of Master Sergeant) is transporting a prisoner named Renko Vik. Vector, Renko's brother calls Sam to announce he is holding Mikaela Banes, Sam's girlfriend, hostage in Washington D.C. and wants to make an exchange. However, Vector is in fact tracking Sam's convoy; two helicopters arrive and ambush it. In the midst of the skirmish, Sam is forced to kill Renko when he brandishes a weapon. In response, Vector executes Mikaela. Sam returns to the U.S. to attend Mikaela's funeral. There, he takes a job at his uncle Daniel Witwicky's car workshop. One day, He saves a girl named Alexis Starr from drowning, and decided to promise to protect her. Sam is provided information by his eccentric co-worker Jerry Wang about the Ark, before Jerry is assassinated by Laserbeak – a condor-like Decepticon.

On the next day, Daniel and his wife Molly discover an old truck in an abandoned theater and they buy it to repair and sell. Daniel discovers that the truck is an injured Optimus Prime's long lost son, Rodimus, and he and Sam repair him, bringing him back to life. Cemetery Wind and Lockdown confront and threaten the Witwickys before Rodimus attacks and rescues them before Lockdown destroys the Witwicky's home. Sam, Alexis, Daniel, Molly, and their son escape with the help of Autobot Hot Rod. After returning to Earth, Optimus uses the energy of his Matrix of Leadership to revive Sentinel Prime. Sam contacts the now-independently wealthy Seymour Simmons, and together they realize that Megatron and the Decepticons are murdering people connected to the American and Russian space missions to the Ark. They locate two surviving Russian cosmonauts who reveal satellite photos of hundreds of Pillars being stockpiled on the Moon. Sam realizes that the Decepticons raided the Ark long before the Autobots mission and intentionally left Sentinel and five Pillars behind to lure the Autobots into a trap – Sentinel being the key to activating the Pillars and the Decepticons lacking the means to revive him. However, Rodimus is more focused on killing Yakamoski and avenging his fallen friends, much to his father's concern and dismay. The Autobots rush to return Sentinel to their base for protection. However, Megatron and his Decepticons arrive and attack for short while before Lockdown kills Sentinel, wounds Optimus and Megatron, capturing them, Alexis and Daniel on his ship. He explains that those who made the Transformers, Unicron, the "Creator," wants Optimus and Megatron back. The Autobots and Decepticons enter an alliance and board the ship while Cemetery Wind give Lockdown the Pillars they stole from NEST headquarters. Sam, Daniel, and Molly rescue Ethan and Alexis and escape with Bumblebee and Sideswipe while Rodimus, Hot Rod, and the Decepticons escape with Optimus and Megatron on a detachable part of Lockdown's ship. Optimus and Megatron explain that Lockdown is planning to use the Pillars to bring Unicron to Earth so he could turn every human into Transformers with Cemetery Wind's help.

Transformers

 * Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots and keeper of the Matrix of Leadership who transforms into a blue and red 1994 Peterbilt 379 semi-trailer truck.
 * Frank Welker as Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons who now transforms into a rusty 10-wheeler Mack Titan tank-truck.
 * Garry Chalk as Rodimus, Optimus Prime's long-lost son who was one of the passengers on the ARK. He transforms into a tow truck.
 * Judy Nelson as Hot Rod.
 * Leonard Nimoy as Sentinel Prime, Optimus's predecessor as the leader of the Autobots who transforms into a red and black Rosenbauer Panther Fire Truck.
 * Mark Ryan as Lockdown, an Cybertronian bounty hunter who transforms into a grey 2006 Lamborghini Gallardo LP 700–4 Coupe and works for Unicron to bring Optimus Prime and Megatron to him.[5][6] He has a group of mercenaries and a pack of Steeljaws.
 * Jess Harnell as Ironhide, the Autobot weapons specialist who transforms into a black 2006 GMC Topkick C4500, and Barricade, the Decepticon who transforms into a police car.
 * Gregg Berger as Grimlock, leader of the Dinobots. He transforms into a metal armoured Tyrannosaurs Rex with Helicopter features.
 * Steven Blum as Starscream, Megatron's second-in-command who transforms into a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.
 * Robert Foxworth as Ratchet, the Autobot medical officer who transforms into a white and green 2004 search and rescue Hummer H2 ambulance.
 * Francesco Quinn as Mirage, the Autobot spy who transforms into a red 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia. This was Quinn's final role before his death shortly after the film was released.
 * James Remar as Sideswipe, the Autobot combat instructor who transforms into a silver 2009 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray.
 * Pete L. J. Dickson as Cliffjumper, the Autobot who resembles Bumblebee and transforms into 2011 Chevrolet Camaro.
 * Corey Burton as Shockwave, the sadistic Decepticon scientist and assassin who transforms into a Cybertronian tank.

Humans

 * Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, a recent college graduate who is once again tied to the fate of Earth's survival.
 * Josh Duhamel as Will Lennox, the commander of the classified strike team NEST, an international task-force battling Decepticons with the Autobots.
 * Halle Berry as Molly Witwicky, an ISEA astronaut and scientist.
 * Goran Visnjic as Dr. Spike Witwicky, Molly's husband, a robotics engineer heading the Humanichs Project.
 * Pierce Gagnon as Daniel Witwicky, Molly and John's son, a humanoid robot and the prototype for the Humanichs Project.
 * John Turturro as Seymour Simmons, a former agent in charge of the terminated Sector 7 unit and now a successful professional writer.
 * Tyrese Gibson as Master Sgt. Rob Epps, a NCOIC of the NEST strike team.
 * Chelsey Reist as Alexis Starr, a girl whom Sam meets and befriends.
 * Hiroyuki Sanada as Dr. Hideki Yakamoski, leader of Cemetery Wind.
 * Frances McDormand as Charlotte Mearing, the Director of National Intelligence.
 * Keiko Agena as the assistant of Charlotte Mearing.
 * Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes, Sam's girlfriend who is murdered by terrorist Vector Vik.

Development
As a preemptive measure before the release of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Michael Lucchi and Paramount Pictures announced on March 16, 2009, that a third film would be released in IMAX 3D on July 1, 2011, which earned a surprised response from producer Michael Bay: "I said I was taking off a year from Transformers. Paramount made a mistake in dating Transformers 3—they asked me on the phone—I said yes to July 1—but for 2012—whoops! Not 2011! That would mean I would have to start prep in September. No way. My brain needs a break from fighting robots."

Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who had worked on the two previous Transformers films, declined to return for the third film, with Kurtzman declaring that "the franchise is so wonderful that it deserves to be fresh, all the time. We just felt like we’d given it a lot and didn’t have an insight for where to go with it next". Revenge of The Fallen's co-writer Ehren Kruger became the head screenwriter for More Than Meets The Eye. Kruger had frequent meetings with Industrial Light & Magic's (ILM) visual effects producers, who suggested plot points such as the scenes in Chernobyl.

In September 2009, D.J. Caruso, the director of Eagle Eye, was announced as the sequel's director and Robert Towne, Ronald D. Moore, Brannon Braga, the writers of Mission: Impossible II, were hired to help Kruger write the story for the film. Caruso described hiring the three writer as "a good opportunity for fresh writing for the franchise".

On October 1, 2009, Bay revealed that Transformers: Dark of the Moon had already gone into pre-production, and its planned release was back to its originally intended date of July 1, 2011, rather than 2012. Due to the revived interest in 3-D technology brought in by the success of Avatar, talks between Paramount, ILM, Caruso, and Bay had considered the possibility of the next Transformers film being filmed in 3-D, and testing was performed to bring the technology into Caruso's work. In addition to using the 3-D Fusion camera rigs developed by Cameron's team, Caruso and the team spent nine months developing a more portable 3-D camera that could be brought into location.

In a hidden extra for the Blu-ray version of Revenge of The Fallen, Bay expressed his intention to make Transformers 3 with Caruso not necessarily larger than Revenge of The Fallen, but instead deeper into the mythology, to give it more character development, and to make it darker and more emotional. Having been called Transformers 3 up to that point, the film's final title was revealed to be More Than Meets The Eye in October 2010. After Revenge of The Fallen was almost universally panned by critics, Bay acknowledged the general flaws of the script, having blamed the 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike prior to the film for many problems. Caruso and Bay promised to not have the "dorky comedy" from the last film as Caruso would take the captain's wheel. On March 19, 2010, the script was said to be finished.

Filming
Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye 's production cost was reported $195 million, to $284 million with the cost of the 3-D filming accounting at $30 million of the budget. Preparation for filming began on April 7, 2010 in Northwest Indiana, specifically around Gary, Indiana, which portrayed Ukraine in the film. Principal photography commenced on May 18, 2010, with shooting locations including Chicago, Florida, and Moscow. The first six weeks were spent in Los Angeles: locations included Sherman Oaks, Fourth Avenue and 5. Main. The next four weeks were spent in Chicago. Locations filmed in Chicago included LaSalle Street, Michigan Avenue, Bacino's of Lincoln Park at 2204 North Lincoln Avenue and around the Willis Tower. The scenes set in Michigan Ave featured a substantial amount of pyrotechnics and stunt work. Filming in Detroit was planned to take place in August but the Chicago shoot was extended until September 1. In late September the production moved to Florida, just before the launch of Space Shuttle mission STS-133.

Music
Composer Steve Jablonsky, who had before collaborated with Bay on The Island and the first two Transformers films, did not return to compose the More Than Meets The Eye score. Instead, composer Henry Jackman was hired to compose the score. This caused backlash with critics and fans. The score was released on June 24, 2011, five days before the actual release of the film.

Release
Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye first premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival on June 23, 2011. Linkin Park performed a special outdoor concert in Red Square in Moscow on the same night in celebration of the event. The film was eventually released on July 1, 2011. It was announced in November 2010 that unlike Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, no scenes in the film were shot with IMAX cameras.

Reception
While many critics praised the film's visual effects and 3-D action sequences, criticism was directed towards the film's running time, acting, and script. Several critics also felt that More Than Meets The Eye failed to live up to the first Transformers film. Film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye a score of 39% based on 244 reviews and a rating average of 4.9/10, saying, "Its special effects and 3-D shots are undeniably impressive, but they aren't enough to fill up its loud, bloated running time, or mask its thin, indifferent script." Metacritic, another review aggregator, gave the film a Metascore of 42/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews" from 37 critics.

Roger Ebert gave the film one out of four stars, criticizing its visuals, plot, characters, and dialogue. Richard Roeper likewise panned the film, giving it a D and saying that "rarely has a movie had less of a soul and less interesting characters." A.O. Scott in The New York Times wrote: "I can't decide if this movie is so spectacularly, breathtakingly dumb as to induce stupidity in anyone who watches, or so brutally brilliant that it disarms all reason. What's the difference?"

Several critics felt that Shia LaBeouf and Chelsey Reist's performances were ineffective. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film zero stars, the same rating that he had given to Revenge of The Fallen, and stated the two actors "couldn't be duller." Tirdad Derakhshani of The Philadelphia Inquirer stated that LaBeouf "plays Witwicky as if he had a ferocious case of attention deficit disorder. After two films, his fidgeting isn't cute anymore." James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote that LaBeouf "has sunk to greater levels of incompetence here. It's hard to call his posturing and screaming 'acting'." Jason Solomons of The Observer wrote that "we're first introduced to Reiset via drowning, segueing straight from the film's opening sequence and titles on to the pert underwear of our heroine," and that her English posh girl accent "renders her practically unintelligible when surrounded by American accents and falling masonry." Much of the criticism towards Chesley Reiset compared her in an unfavorable light to Megan Fox. Lou Lumenick of the New York Post wrote that her "'acting' makes...Megan Fox look like Meryl Streep in comparison." Baz Bamigboye of the Daily Mail titled his review of the film, 'Come back Megan Fox, all is forgiven...'. Reist was later nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress for her performance, but lost to David Spade for Jack and Jill.

In a more positive review, Steve Prokopy of Ain't It Cool News found the film to better than the first two. Jim Vejvoda of IGN gave the film a score of seven out of ten, also stating that it was the best of the franchise. E! Online graded the film a B+ while noting if this film is truly the end of a trilogy, its main antagonists should have played more of a part. Website Daily Bhaskar also praised the film, rating it three and a half out of five stars, citing it as an improvement on the previous film, and writing that it "gives fans something to cheer about". CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was an A on an F to A+ scale.

Many reviews praised the film's special effects and aggressive use of 3-D. After previewing a partial, unfinished cut of the film, Kofi Outlaw of Screen Rant declared that Caruso had created the best 3-D experience since James Cameron's Avatar. Neil Schneider of Meant to be Seen, a website focused on stereoscopic 3-D gaming and entertainment, remarked that "while Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye had the scrapings of a really good story, this 3-D movie was shot with a 2-D script." On the topic of 3-D, Schneider said "Transformers 3 was a mix of native stereoscopic 3-D camera capturing and 2-D/3-D conversion (as a 3-D tool), and most was done very well." He added, "At a minimum, Transformers 3 demonstrates that fast cutting sequences are indeed possible and practical in stereoscopic 3-D. More than that, it was a comfortable experience and helped exemplify great use of stereoscopic 3-D with live action and digital characters.  That said, I think they still could have taken it much further."

Charlie Jane Anders of io9 believed that some elements of the film were deliberate self-references to Michael Bay's own sense of under-appreciation after the backlash to the second film: "After a few hours of seeing Shia get dissed, overlooked and mistreated, the message becomes clear: Shia, as always, is a stand-in for Michael Bay. And Bay is showing us just what it felt like to deal with the ocean of Haterade—the snarking, the Razzie Award, the mean reviews—that Revenge of The Fallen unleashed." She went on to say that the film's frequent, often jarring shifts in tone were an intentional endorsement of Michael Bay's own filmmaking style. "Tone is for single-purpose machines. Consistency is for Decepticons. Michael Bay's ideal movie shifts from action movie to teen comedy to political drama with the same well-lubricated ease that his cars become men. By the time you've finished watching, you will speak Michael Bay's cinematic language."

Worldwide
Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye grossed $352,390,543 in North America, and $771,403,536 in other territories, for a worldwide total of $1,123,794,079. Worldwide, it is the thirteenth highest-grossing film, the second highest-grossing 2011 film, the highest-grossing film of the Transformers series, the second highest-grossing film by Paramount (behind Titanic), the third highest-grossing threequel (behind Iron Man 3 and Captain America: Civil War), and the highest-grossing Hasbro film as of 2013. It is also the tenth film in cinematic history to earn more than $1,000 million, and the fifth-fastest film to achieve this. Its worldwide opening weekend ($382.4 million) is the fourth-largest ever and the largest for Paramount. It set an IMAX worldwide opening-weekend record with $23.1 million (first surpassed by Deathly Hallows – Part 2). It reached $400M (6 days), $500M (9 days), $600M (12 days) and $700M (16 days) in record time, but lost all records to Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

North America
The film opened in 4,088 theaters including a then-record total of 2,789 3D locations. It made $5.5 million during Tuesday 9 p.m. showings, $8 million during midnight showings. and $37.7 million on its opening day (Wednesday) – including Tuesday showings. This was the sixth-best opening Wednesday. However, all these figures were lower than Revenge of the Fallen. On Thursday, it earned $21.5 million, falling 43%, an improvement from its predecessor's Wednesday-to-Thursday decline. It grossed $33.0 million on Friday totaling $97.8 million. Its 3D share accounted for 60% of its gross, which was atypical due to the downturn in 3D attendance in North America. For its three-day opening weekend (Friday-to-Sunday), it grossed $97.9 million. It achieved the third-largest opening weekend of 2011, the fourth-largest opening weekend in July, the fifth-largest opening weekend for a film not released on Friday and the second-largest five-day gross for a film opening on Wednesday. It set records for the 3-day ($97.9 million) and 4-day ($115.9 million) Independence Day weekend, surpassing Spider-Man 2 record in both cases ($88.2 million and $115.8 million respectively). It retained first place on its second weekend, dropping 52% to $47.1 million. Closing on October 13, 2011 with $352.4 million, it is the second-highest-grossing film of 2011 and the second-highest-grossing film in the franchise.

Outside North America
The film grossed $32.5 million on its opening day, pacing 38% ahead of its predecessor. Including some early Tuesday previews, it earned $36.6 million in one-and-a-half days, and by Thursday its overseas total reached $66 million. By the end of its first weekend, it had earned $219.8 million, which stands as the fifth-largest opening weekend of all time overseas and the largest for Paramount. Its foreign launch was 57% ahead of that of Revenge of the Fallen ($139.6 million). 70% of its grosses came from 3-D (a higher 3-D share than Pirates 4's 66%). Don Harris, general manager of distribution for Paramount, commented on the results of More Than Meets The Eye: "If we hadn't chosen to debut the movie later in Japan and China, we probably would have had the all-time record." The film topped the box office outside North America for two weekends in a row.

In China, its highest-grossing market after North America, the film set records for an opening day with $15.9 million, a single day with $17.4 million (overtaken by Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons) and an opening weekend with $46.8 million ($62.7 million with previews). The latter was taken from Avatar ($42.0 million). The opening weekend record, when including previews, was surpassed by Titanic 3D ($74.2 million). More Than Meets The Eye ended its run with $167.95 million, marking the highest-grossing film of 2011. Besides China, it broke the opening-day record in Russia and South Korea; the single-day record in Hong Kong; and the opening weekend record in South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, the UAE, the Philippines and Peru (the last three records were surpassed by Marvel's The Avengers). Following China in total earnings were South Korea ($69.1 million) and Japan ($54.2 million).

Home media
During Hasbro Investor Day, it was announced that the DVD and Blu-ray disc would be released in the fourth quarter of 2011. The NTSC home release for the film was released on September 30, 2011, with a Blu-ray 3D version of the film slated for release in "the coming months". However, the first home release was criticized for the lack of bonus features. A Blu-ray "Extended Action Cut" added 10 minutes of footage and uncensored violence was also available, with the United States version being a Best Buy exclusive.

A Walmart exclusive edition of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye also was released on September 30, 2011. The PAL DVD and Blu-ray Discs of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye was released on November 28, 2011.

In North America, it sold 716,218 DVD units (equivalent of $13,565,169) in its first week, topping the weekly DVD chart. It had since sold 2,829,285 DVD units (equivalent of $48,058,979). It also topped the Blu-ray charts on the same week and it has sold 2,381,657 Blu-ray units (earning $50,934,911) by October 23, 2011. The Blu-ray 3D release of the film was released on January 31, 2012.

The aftermarket multimedia bundle Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye consists of a DVD or Blu-ray copy of Transformers: More Than Meets The Eye and a CD or digital copy of Pink Floyd's More Than Meets The Eye, intended to be synchronized by setting one's CD or media file player to repeat mode and relatively high volume, turning the audiovisual volume down or off, playing the DVD or Blu-ray disc, and starting the CD as the final star in the Paramount logo appears.