Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

Why is it that when the Transformers are in their robot state, their car/vehicle/etc. panels are all scratched to shit but, when they turn into their vehicle form, they have immaculate paint jobs?  That is just one of the many, many plot holes and problems with this movie.  Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it somewhat.  First, it is way better than Revenge of the Fallen.  I go to see these movies because they have cool transforming robots that cause massive destruction.  With Dark of the Moon, you get lots and lots of that.  Visually, it is a very appealing action movie.  There are a lot of really cool shots and it would appear that Michael Bay fired his vertigo-ridden dwarf as his main camera operator because you don't really have those  played out "spin around the model" shots.

The sad thing is, in order to get all of that really cool action, you have to put up with a lot of crap.  In that respect, Dark of the Moon is no different than the other Transformers movies.  While, of the three, it is Shia LaBeouf's best performance, he is still cheesy.  Everyone else is cheesy too.  Furthermore, if you are going to go through the trouble of getting rid of Megan Fox and throwing a blatant insult at her in the movie, at least replace her with something better.  Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, while nice to look at from the neck down, is just plain awful.  The rest of the acting and writing is no different from the other movies.  No better, no worse.  There are still the terrible efforts for comic relief and at one point, I even said "oh for f**k's sake" out loud.  The story is easier to follow than Revenge of the Fallen but it's really minor.  I will say that I still liked John Turturro's character and the addition of John Malkovich was well done.  With those two only, the comic relief was OK.  Finally, with regards to the acting, we have another example of good actors not being able to save bad writing.  Frances MacDormond and Patrick Dempsey are two good actors that are horrible in this.

It is flat out too long.  About two hours in, I started getting a headache from the 3D and intense motion and thought it was time to wrap it up.  There are so many things that could be cut out.  Take out the crap (ie. everything with Sam's parents for starters) and make a much more watchable 110 minute action movie.  And while you're at it, we could have done without Steven Spielberg's and Michael Bay's political agendas getting pushed on us.  I have no problem with celebrities using their celebrity to raise awareness on an issue but leave it out of the movie.  I do not pay you to feed me your propaganda.  And, oh, Mr. Bay, ripping off lines and concepts from multiple movies is not good movie making at all.  For shame!  And they're giant, technologically advanced robots.  By now, Bumblebee should be able to talk dammit!

Anyways, enough of my soapbox.  Even though it is better than Revenge of the Fallen, I recommend that you don't bother seeing it.  Unless you want only action and mayhem, you will spend more time rolling your eyes than anything else.  If all you want is action, it's got plenty and you may like it.  Finally, we know there will be a fourth movie.  They make too much money for there not to be one.  But they've done a really good job in setting it up to be a failure so maybe the end is in sight.  (That's all I'm going to say on that.  I don't want to spoil it.)