Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Overall:

Not as good as the first, but better than the second.

Things I liked:

Alan Tudyk. I think he may have been one of the funniest parts of the movie, although he may be a very minor part. He is fabulous.

I enjoyed the amount of history they brought into this movie. And, while I feel they could have done it a little better, I’m happy they tried as hard as they did. I especially enjoy movies that broach the subject of Chernobyl and don’t outright demonize it. It was an atrocious event, but these things happen in the never-ending human conquest for furthering our kind. And I felt that the parallels of the “immanent” destruction at the end were kind of fitting.

There’s a point where a building in Chicago is being cut in half more or less by the Decepticons, and its top portion ends up at an extreme angle to the ground, which brought about some rather fun action moments.

I appreciate that these movies aren’t rehashing the same plot over and over again. They really are trying to create separate storylines that encapsulate rather different tonal mediums… but in the end Michael Bay is going to blow stuff up.

And sometimes, you just want a “Michael Bay blowing stuff up” movie.

The Problems:

It does get off to a rather slow start, and I’m not certain why we needed that much back story.

WHY THE HECK ARE THE DECEPTICONS "BLEEDING" ALL OF A SUDDEN? Did I just block that out in the first two? Because let’s face it. They don’t need to bleed or have a blood substitute. It’s just not necessary!

There were some things in the plot that weren't explained enough, so I wasn't in awe at the craziness of it... I was still trying to figure out how that was going to work out anyway. I mean, transporting the planet into Earth’s atmosphere? What? I guess if the planet was hollow and was going to be like encased around Earth it might make sense… but it just wasn’t explained concisely enough to give me any sense of real foreboding.

I felt like the addition of the Victoria Secret model was an unnecessary addition... I don't think Sam needs a girl to make the story work. However, she did class the movie up a bit compared to Megan "shove the camera up my a$$" Fox and was a fairly decent actress, considering that she’d only ever done VS commercials before.

Runtime: 154 minutes

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