Review for TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

It's time transform and roll out, one more time.

Transformers has had a 26-year history, starting with the world famous toy line, then spanding to media such as comics, television, video games and several films, and that's what we're here to talk about.  Micahel Bay took it upon himself to put out the first live-action film of Transformers back in 2007, and it was a decent Summer Blockbuster.  Bay's sequel  Revenge of the Fallen was...well let's just say it, it sucked out loud.  But now in 2011, Bay gets a chance to save the franchise and redeem his last film's failure.  And with a huge surprise, he does it with an appropriate, KABOOM!!

The film first takes place back in the 60's, where the U.S. begins to look towards the stars and begin their space race against the Soviets.  It turns out, that the original reason we sent a team of astronauts to the moon is to investigate what could be a crashed ship, alien in origin.  And it turns out, they were right.  The ship was a Autobot cruiser called The Ark, which carries the components used to create a space bridge, a machine that can transport certain across space and time.  It's hard to explain the mechanics but I think its kind of like...

Anyway, we then jump to the present.  Sam Witwicky, played again by Shia LeBeouf, is now out on his own, living in Chicago with his new girl Carly, played by English model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but you can just call her "Blond Megan Fox," as she doesn't really offer anything to the film other than for men to ogle at.  Sam doesn't have Bumble Bee around this time as he, and the other Autobots, now turn their attention to world issues, which involve things like busting illegal radiation plants and taking down world criminal activities.  But when an investigation out in Chernobyl reveals that the old Soviet Regime had their hands on an Autobot fuel cell, Optimus Prime is angered that his team's human allies, have lied about their knowledge of the crashed Ark and that they knew about the parts to the space bridge.  Optimus then takes a team to the moon to retrieve the parts and former leader of the Autobots, Sentinel Prime.  From there, the film goes from battle to battle with all the explosions you would expect from a Michael Bay film.

This movie surprised me, it really did.  I would have thought Bay killed the franchise after the second movie, but he totally turned it around.  One way he did that was stay out of the writing.  The story is a lot bigger and much better to understand.  There are no dumb one liners, or stupid quotes, like "Give me your face!" (Man that was dumb).  The story is also surprisingly darker than it's predecessors.  To avoid spoilers, all I'll say on this, is that happens near the end.  The writing also includes jokes here in there to break the tension, but some hit there mark, but others just fall flat and fall hard.  Also to great surprise, the 3D was fairly decent, but only on parts with ships and/or robots flying around.  But if you still might enjoy the film without the 3D, and even save some money on top of that.  

Acting wise...there's really nothing good or bad about it, Sam still scream like a girl during intense situations, Carly just needs to stand there and look pretty, and all the supporting cast do what they can to, well, support.  Sam's parents also make a return, during their road trip across America, but they don't stay too long to be important to the overall story.  The voice acting for the Autobots and Decepticons are so-so, however the Autobots seem to have accents from all over the world.  From what I heard, I picked out Irish, English, and even Italian accents from at least five of the Autobots.  Not exactly a bad thing, but I just found it kind of odd that it was more predominant on the Autobot side.  Speaking of the Autobots, more show up but there is no real effort to tell us who they are.  The only new ones I could pick out were Sideswipe (who has more screen time than his appearance from the last movie), and Jolt, who you can see in the background during one scene and thats it, hes just there for that part and we never see him again.  There are also a lot of moments where the film really drags on with scenes of Sam trying to get his life together, without the Bumble Bee or the rest of the Autobots at his side.  It really shows in the first act of the film, but when he's back together with his robotic friends, it passes, the dragging feeling quickly passes.

In the end, Transformers: Dark of the Moon is the perfect example of what a summer blockbuster is.  Big explosions, fast cars, giant killer robots, and (kind of) hot women.  I say kind of hot because I don't really find Roise Huntington all that good looking, as she's just a blond twig with collagen filled lips.  But besides that, I really enjoyed this film.

MY RATING:
8/10