I was totally baffled in the aftermath of Tron by many people saying that they thought it had good 3D; I now find myself back in the exact same boat with this latest Transformers offering: I thought Transformers 3D was the least impressive that Ive seen in a live(ish) action film that was natively(ish
) filmed stereoscopically.
As Steve mentions, one of the problems was that Bays camera is as hectic as ever. I know it has been mentioned that, because he was filming in 3D, he was forced to put the brakes on this a bit - I didnt really notice any such control.
The scenes of people talking were very reminiscent of Tron a flattened face with a layer of background behind. There was no sense of solidity to anything and, compared to something like Avatar, little evidence that much thought had been given to the stereoscopic frame.
There was quite a lot of shallow depth of field which suggests to me that the film was shot with more regard for how it would look in 2D than 3D. I dont know who the stereographer was on this film, but Im pretty sure it wasnt someone of the calibre of whoever worked on Resident Evil, Drive Angry or The Hole, all three of which I regard as very good examples of how to film in 3D.
It may have been due to the particular screening I was at (a Real D presentation), but there was a large amount of ghosting visible. I think this is one of the things the anti-3D crowd talk about a lot, referring to it as a blurry image. This film was frequently very blurry due to ghosting. Also, as Steve mentioned, there were several shots that simply looked wrong, with the background appearing to be in the wrong plane (i.e. too close).
Another thing that anti-3D people often say is, The 3D added nothing to the film. I usually despair at this statement as it generally translates to me as, I have no appreciation for the compositional art form of 3D. In the case of Transformers
the 3D added nothing to the film. It simply acted as a barrier to the film itself.
Like Steve, Id had more than enough after an hour and decided it was time to let go of this particular rising balloon, and made my escape from the cinema under cover of my 3D glasses. (So, it could be that the 3D got really good in the second half but, judging by the quality of the first half, I doubt it.)
This is one of the big native 3D films of the year, and Ill be interested to see what its 2D/3D box office split is. Im a little concerned that quite a few people seem to be regarding this as being good quality 3D when, from what I saw, it appeared to have been a sloppy and ill-conceived implementation of the technique. (In another thread here at AVForums in the Movies section one or two people have suggested that the quality of the 3D is up there with Avatars which, for my money, is a bit like comparing the quality of the film itself with Citizen Kane.) Also, with the film being so poor, its likely to encourage the notion that 3D is only suitable for idiotic, badly made, lowest common denominator nonsense.
A real surprise for me, going back to Mr Ds earlier comments, was that the trailer for Captain America (a 2D conversion) possibly had better looking 3D than Transformers. I should add that it still didnt look real but, at least from a compositional point of view, it appeared to do a better job than Transformers.
Its a bit too early to judge whether this is another nail in the coffin for 3D - but I certainly hope its a nail in the coffin for Michael Bays Transformers films