Today's Review: Transformers: Dark Of The Moon

They say "dark side of the moon" all the way through, but I guess they didn't want the title to sound like a tie in with Pink Floyd...

Yay, it's a third Transformers movie. If you like your massive robots and explosions, you probably won't be disappointed. If you enjoyed the second Transformers, you probably won't be disappointed either, but I thought the second was kinda bad.

It's good to see this carries on the tradition. We start the new movie following the recent exploits of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), as he has hooked up with a random girl who isn't Megan Fox. She is referred to as a bitch though, so good job on being tactful there, Michael Bay. Anyway, Sam is a bit down on his luck, and struggling to find a job, but when he eventually does he finds himself quickly embroiled in the latest Autobot/Decepticon world ending war event. This time it's tied in so that the moon landings were a cover up to investigate a crashed ship, but while they try and tie it in neatly to stock footage, nothing can detract attention away from a CGId Kennedy face.

Soon all the robots are present, and after explaining some plot that could bring about the end of the world, the explosions and gunfire begin. Unfortunately this movie wastes a hell of a lot of time setting up the story, and doesn't do it very well. Where Revenge Of The Fallen had enough bad comic relief to put off a lot of fans of the first, Dark Of The Moon just keeps on going. The one liners are bad, the comedy is almost reduced to slapstick, and the characters are all so over the top that it seems like Transformers is set in an alternate universe where giant sentient robots exist, but also every human being on the planet is just a ridiculous caricature.

There are also some wise cracking tiny robots with stupid accents, apparently because all the stupid attempts at human comedy were not enough, and we need some racial stereotype voices layered on top of some mechanical characters too. So yes, the first hour and a half of the movie is quite insufferable. Any time there's an action scene, and the story seems to be progressing, we're treated to just as much footage of Sam stumbling over desks or getting into awkward situations with co-workers.

Thankfully it does pick up near the end. When all of the build up is out of the way all that's left is to wrap it all up with climactic action scenes. While Michael Bay may be ridiculed for his use of explosions, he certainly is good at making them. At two and a half hours the movie goes on for too long, but most of the first half could have been cut if anyone with a real sense of humour was allowed in the editing room, hell, even employed to write the thing. But what you find in the final scenes of the film is some damn good special effects laden action sequences. The flimsy plot may not hold up beforehand, but during the last moments you're really egging the guys on as they dodge explosions and evil robots to save the world, pure Hollywood style.

Transformers: Dark Of The Moon is a pure Hollywood movie. A strong script and great actors are not really to be expected, but they certainly make it worse with all the ridiculous jokes and slapstick dotted throughout the first half. But looking at the movie as a whole, it's not bad.

My rating: 3/5