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841 reviews in total

498 out of 761 people found the following review useful:
Ugh..., 30 June 2011

Author: devolucija from Croatia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

// Minor spoilers and bad guy ultimate plot revealed in last paragraph, but it's so stupid you want to know it. Long and rant filled review.

Let's start with 10 stars.

Rosie and Shia wouldn't know how to fake chemistry if someone wrapped a lead pipe in the periodic table and beat them upside their botoxed faces for an hour. The romance part is so awful, so cheesy in this movie, it takes down a star right off the bat. I will also mention the "romance" between Optimus Prime and America - the "one and only real and holy country in the world". *puke*

9 / 10.

Rosie has to be mentioned again as a standalone entry. I can imagine how the casting went.. Bay walks into modeling agency, closes his eyes and says "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, you're the clone that comes along!", thereby picking out the 403rd pair of tits in the lineup. A horrible actress, pretentious character and a so obnoxiously unnecessary role the movie would have been two stars better if she were not there at all. Also, lips are not supposed to look like that. If I was Shia, I'd worry "Are you sure your lips don't hurt? Can we kiss? Won't a stitch break or something?"

7 / 10.

At one point, a guy "hacks" a bridge. He logs into the "bridge control" , and lowers it. Hollywood, bridges do not have an open internet connection with a designated port for "Bridge Control API", otherwise every hacker would be lowering and raising bridges everywhere.

6 / 10.

Since the black guy stereotypes in Transformers2 got some bad rep, Bay went the other way this time - Irish and Scottish. Yes, there is a green robot with an Irish accent, and a red robot with a huge belly and a beard, with a Scottish accent. How did that happen? Did they scan an Ire/Scot when they landed instead of a car? If so, weren't they supposed to turn into the robot-terminator-chick type from Transformers 2?

5 / 10.

Physics. Oh god, the physics. Dear Michael Bay, please realize the following: a) Moon sand is a highly corrosive and metal-unfriendly substance. Any kind of moving metalpart coming in that much contact with it would self destruct by the time it made 3 steps. b) One plane was enough to collapse a Twin Tower into dust. A seventy million billion ton robot shooting and crashing into a building will not make it "tilt slightly" and when that building falls, it will not get stuck between two others like a bridge, ever, regardless what it's made of, especially if that same robot is still crawling through it and destroying chunks. c) When stuff explodes near people, people tend to be stunned, burned and / or get shrapnel shot into their spines. They do not sit idly by and contemplate the situation. So if a grenade explodes in an office cubicle next to the one where the protagonist is standing, he will most probably DIE. d) You cannot grab a SHARP, MAD, DANGEROUS robot by the neck and keep it in control. You will LOSE YOUR FINGERS. e) Do you have any idea how much extra it costs to send an extra kilogram into space in a shuttle? Now imagine how much fuel and money you would need to send 10 million-ton robots into space with a regular human space shuttle launcher. f) When people fly through glass, they ALWAYS get cut. When they fly through 10 panes of glass, they DIE. When they fly through 20, they DON'T, because they got impaled on the 12th or 13th.

4/10

Stealing characters from other franchises just for the kick of it is not cool. You have a predator robot, a robot that is "Q from James Bond", etc. What...?

3 / 10.

Plot: If I was an evil genius and built a war-turning technology, I definitely would not build it so that it has exactly one weak point that, if struck, undoes absolutely everything it ever did, and I would definitely not leave it exposed. The bad guys' ultimate plan was to teleport their PLANET to Earth's atmosphere in order to rebuild it. This raises several issues: 1) You would have approximately 10 minutes to live, before Earth and Cybertron collided due to gravity. Those 10 minutes would be filled with an apocalypse due to uncontrollable floods caused by tides. 2) If you want 6 billion people for the sole purpose of slave labor, you should think about point 1). Also, it is stupid to believe 6 billion people could rebuild a robotic planet sooner or better than 1000 decepticons - you not only have to accommodate and feed the people, but also modify the planet's surface for them to be able to move on it. 3) There is a part where Megatron is chillaxing in an alley after a big fight, and the flat-lipped wonder of a model-clone that is Carly comes up to him spewing some bullshit about the other bad guy getting ready to betray him. Now, even if she made a point, I would still CRUSH that human insect. A meaningless pretentious bitch telling me what to think? I'm a god damn eleventy billion ton robot, you skank! *crush* The other critically stupid thing is the fact that Megatron then prevents the other bad guy from killing Optimus. If you have two enemies who are fighting, it is generally not a good idea to prevent them from killing each other! And while we're here, the decepticons could have won if the bad guy had just used one of the 994208 chances to kill Optimus he's had up until this point.

This brings the movie down to 1/10, but I'll give it a star for excellent special effects. 2/10.

357 out of 615 people found the following review useful:
Amazing visual spectacle but tedious and full of clichés, 28 June 2011

Author: Freddy Cox from United Kingdom

This film is certainly an outstanding visual spectacle that boasts some of the most impressive, fluid and stunning cgi sequences I've ever seen. The photography is fantastic and the 3d technology is used effectively to create stunning, visually amazing scenes. However, that is the only aspect of the film that I believe deserves merit at all.

Despite the continuous action, destruction and battles, I found this film to be extremely boring, and the final battle, which claimed the last hour of the film was far too long and drawn out and it greatly prevented me from appreciating the visual spectacle that is the final battle as it's so long it becomes tedious and I couldn't wait for it to end.

The extensive use of cgi action scenes was what ruined the film for me, and although I never fully agree with the typical view that modern films have too much cgi and effects and not enough good story, this film certainly presented a convincing case that the above statement is true. As there is so much shooting, exploding and fighting in this film there is relatively little time for dialogue, which was largely, poorly written, and full of clichés.

Finally, I didn't rate the casting of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley or her performance. She has clearly been chosen for the role for her good looks and her great sex appeal although I think she shines brighter as an underwear model than blockbuster film actress. Also, It seems unbelievable to me that Shia LaBeouf's character, although not a bad looking guy, has been in relationships with 2 characters played by women who have both topped the annual FHM 100 sexiest women in the world poll. Rosie has clearly been cast to attract more male viewers, bring sex appeal that the film didn't really need and throughout struck me as being far out of Shia's league.

219 out of 346 people found the following review useful:
Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Some Things Never Change, 8 July 2011

Author: goldwriting from www.theendofthepage.com

I'm going to commit what to many will seem like film geek treason, I will now connect Michael Bay and Terrence Malick into one theory of filmmaking.

Yep, deal with it.

Malick and Bay share one important thing and that is a completely unabashed tunnelvision for the type of film they want, damn the naysayers, critics and crowds. They both make movies mainly for themselves and in truth, there is nothing wrong with that. As an audience member you need to know going in exactly what you are going to get. It is the only way to really enjoy anything that falls from the cameras of these two (and some other notables). With that said, let's dive headlong into the metallic masterpiece of summertime popcorn, Transformers!

Transformers: Dark of the Moon continues the story of Sam Witwicky and his Autobot friends. While Sam struggles to gain a purpose in life outside of Decepticon attacks, the Autobots are off helping the government on secret missions. Then everything is torn apart by the discovery of the original Autobot escape ship, known as The Ark, and the captain of that ship, Sentinel Prime. He alone holds the key to technology that could either help reshape the Transformers home world or completely destroy ours. The Decepticons, completely aware of this discovery, make an immediate power play and the war is back, bigger than ever.

Kids buying the Transformer toys today only want one thing, huge robots in spectacular 3D slow motion destroying each other and every building in sight. From this narrow viewpoint, Bay delivers in bulk. The highway fight sequence brought back memories of other high-speed terror scenes like in Matrix Reloaded and The Island (maybe a little too reminiscent of that last one according to some eagle eyed movie nerds). Since Bay actually filmed these scenes in the latest and greatest 3D technology, it was admittedly pretty amazing to watch. In other scenes, some of the CGI was so intensely crisp that it actually started popping too far from the live footage, making it stand out, which ruins a little of the illusion.

So the special effects is where it was at. Big robots, big explosions, big buildings falling down. Those were the high points.

The low points were pretty much everything else.

Standing in the center of all the toys-on-roids insanity is Shia LaBeouf, who in my opinion is a really good actor banking inside really bad movies. I can't fault him for taking parts in some of the biggest franchises in movie history (Transformers and Indiana Jones) because the exposure and paycheck are nearly impossible to pass up, but in terms of showing his skills as an actor, those hefty titles have done him nothing but a painful disservice. He made his big splash on the scene in the Disney TV show Even Stevens and then on the big screen in the Rear Window update, Disturbia. Many people also don't remember one of my personal favorite performances in the Project Greenlight-sponsored film, The Battle of Shaker Heights. Shia has the chops, but gets surrounded by weak emotional performances, both from CGI and real people. In this outing, Megan Fox's eye candy character was replaced by Victoria Secret's model (and current Jason Statham girlfriend), Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Whiteley was an improvement in sense of acting ability, but the part was written levels below what Fox was given. The original love interest had layers, depth and some edge, while Whiteley was given virtually no background, no emotional outlet and nothing to do but stand there and be hot. Sure, the 12-year old in the audience doesn't want or need more, but to them I say, "Go grab a Victoria Secret's catalog from your parent's bathroom and stay out of my movie."

Beyond the magical pair of leads, Bay brings back the regular tough guys, Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson, to keep on keeping on. They both do fine jobs and don't try to make this more than it is. Coming in for the first time in the franchise is Frances McDormand, an Academy Award winner to class up the joint. While she was amusing and brought a little more skill to the screen, her part was borderline over-the-top, even in a movie with three story tall robots, because she had to balance out John Tuturro who drifts somewhere off to Hunter S. Thompson land. As if they weren't enough, Bay decides to bring in an unusual amount of big name cameos, including John Malkovich (who does a decent job in his few scenes) and Ken Jeong (who seems to be acting in a completely different movie, possibly thinks he's filming Hangover 3). I saved the best for last though, my personal favorite and the only person I was actually thrilled to see appear on screen, Alan Tudyk (who plays Tuturo's assistant/bodyguard). Tudyk is a cult TV and film legend to his legions of fans spanning from the days of Firefly, Dollhouse and other projects not created by Joss Wheedon. Tudyk was the one person I actually cheered form when he magically appeared on screen.

I could go into a section now where I talk about the story, the plot lines, the connective tissue of the writing, but in reality, Bay didn't really care and neither do the younger members of the crowd, so let's just skip it.

The End of the Page recommendation: Transformers: Dark of the Moon starts slow, goes out with a bang and delivers surface entertainment for the middle school crowd.

312 out of 533 people found the following review useful:
I have seen the future of horror, and his name is Michael Bay, 30 June 2011

Author: usskirkncc3001 from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

He has now made two blockbuster movies which make no sense no matter how many ways you try to put them together, and people don't seem to care. The critics have brutally trashed both this movie and "The Fallen" movie, yet audiences love both films although they seem to have been put together by a group of 2nd graders who playing out randomly strung together old cartoon episodes with their toys.

I am an old school fan who liked the first two movies, but "Dark of the Moon" makes "Fallen" look like Shakespeare. It's incredible how many people are saying that this movie is better than "Fallen". With all its faults, at least "Fallen" had humor, some incredible action sequences and effects, and an interesting, if incomplete, script. This movie has none of these things. This is a very long and boring movie that wastes the talents of good actors. The attempts at humor are painful to watch. The three Transformers movies cannot be connected now no matter how hard you try. To make another sequel would be ludicrous, but seeing how much money this drivel is making already, I bet they have already taken the five minutes needed to write the next one. The original writers were smart to bail out of this train wreck after Bay made them write "Fallen" in a couple of days and went on to butcher the little that they had time to write. This time there was no writers' strike, so I expected better--like explanations and connections across all three films. You'll get none of that here, just more incomprehensible nonsense that ignores the other films. You don't know what's going on half the time, and the final battle has no pacing, motivation, or orientation--it just drags on and on and on---like that 20 minute desert sequence in "The Fallen" multiplied by 10.

What happened to the Cube's knowledge in Sam's brain? Why was Sentinel Prime's ship shot down by the people that were working with him? How was Megatron going to rendezvous with him if they ended up finding earth in different time periods? Why did Megatron go after the cube if the original plan seemed to be to enslave earth and transport Cybertron there using the space bridge? How did Sentinel's ship crash on earth's moon if it was shot down over Cybertron? Why didn't Megatron go after the Space Bridge parts when he awoke in the first movie? Why didn't he after he awoke in the second movie? Why didn't they use the shard in the second movie to activate Sentinel on the moon instead of Megatron? How did Sentinel, the Cube, and the Sun Harvester all end up on earth? Why are the Transformers not even bothering to project human images in their car modes anymore? Why does Prime carry The Matrix of Leadership (a key to activate the Sun Harvester) inside of him and use it to energize Autobots which it is not meant to do? When, why, and how did an entire army of generic Decepticons hide inside of the moon? Why do the Transformers transform? These are just a few of about a hundred questions that this movie brings up. I suspect that not even Michael Bay knows the answers, and he doesn't care. it's insulting.

There are some good ideas, but it's all put together very badly, and not much is explained. Watching this movie gave me the feeling that Bay and the actors are here to wrap this up and are not interested in this material. The studios will be pressuring him to make #4, so he can get some 3rd graders together to write a script again---yet another group of Autobots has been buried in a volcano for 4 million years! They can transform to dinosaurs-- no explanation is necessary. Out of all of the planets in the infinite universe, their ship crashed on earth because...well because the script says so. They were looking for the cube, no-- the Harvester, no-- the space bridge, no wait...they were looking for the ancestor of Michael Bay. If Bay is never born, these movies would never exist and we can reboot.

136 out of 186 people found the following review useful:
ho-ho-horrendous, 25 July 2011
Author: petit76 from United States

373 out of 663 people found the following review useful:
A Big Improvement from Revenge of the Fallen, 15 June 2011

Author: Grey Gardens from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

As a huge fan of the Transformers animated series, I like the first Transformers film. The visuals were spectacular and so were the fighting scenes When I saw Transformers 2, which is a HUGE mess of a film, I was really angry. I vowed never to see a Transformers film ever again. But when the trailer of Transformers 3 came out, I actually got a little interested. I mean the special effects were pretty much great as usual. But this time, it seemed they took off the annoying little robots and that annoying mother and replaced them with good old fashioned action.

When I went to an advanced screening yesterday, I still came in with relatively low expectations. I have to say, that Transformers 3 is an overall improvement from its predecessor, Transformers 2. The film was pretty much at level with the first film, though. The action scenes were highly extravagant and at times, pretty epic. The movie had a lot less lame scenes, which is always a plus. The acting was okay. Megan Fox's replacement, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was okay, but she's certainly not a good actress, but a mediocre one, actually I liked her more than Megan Fox. I liked how the movie used the Apollo landing as a part of its story, like in Forrest Gump. However there were so many characters that were extremely thinly written. John Turturro's character was definitely not needed and some of the dialogue was incoherent and very messy, at times. The movie is also way too long, at 157 minutes, wow. I thought the last scene with Megatron was completely rushed and so was the ending. Although the last hour of the film is pretty epic at times, so I was fulfilled with the visual effects.

Overall I rate Transformers 3, an 7/10. Don't go in expecting a Best Picture winner/nominee. With the right amount of expectations, you will probably be fulfilled. A definite improvement over Revenge of the Fallen, which doesn't say much. But at the end, the great special effects and extremely extravagant action scenes more than make up its flaws. I'd recommend this film if you like the franchise.

251 out of 427 people found the following review useful:
Stunning Effects But the movie lacks Heart and Soul, 28 June 2011

Author: changmoh from Malaysia

It's 'Bayhem' time again - and this time around demolition king Michael Bay presents his trademark 'Six-C's' in glorious 3D! In case you don't know, the six 'Cs' are: chases, clashes, crashes, combustions, carnage and cleavage. Spread over a bottom-numbing two-and-a-half hours, "Transformers: Dark Of The Moon" can also induce mental and metal fatigue, especially with the clanging robots smashing one another - and the whole exercise making little sense.

Technologically, however, "Dark Of The Moon" is Bay's best work so far - and action fans looking to be awed by scenes of massive mayhem and destruction in 3D should be satisfied. Story-wise, this one is better than "Revenge Of The Fallen", but not as fun and emotionally-connecting as the first.

The film opens with a flashback to the Sixties Apollo landing mission where history is rewritten (by Ehren Kruger) to incorporate the cover-up of an alien spaceship crashing on the moon. That spaceship, of course, is one of the remains of the epic battles between the Autobots and the Decepticons, and its 'discovery' sparks off another war that threatens to destroy planet Earth. Or at least the face of Chicago as we know it.

On the human level, we find that Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has traded in his girlfriend Mikaela (Megan Fox) for a newer model (a Victoria Secret one, to be exact) in the shape of Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Carly). Sam is being offered a job by Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich) but we soon learn that Carly's boss Dylan (Patrick Dempsey) may be up to no good. Then, when the conflict between the Autobots and Decepticons hots up, Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sergeant Epps (Tyrese Gibson) of the elite Government squad NEST are summarily called into action.

We get lulled into believing that there may somehow be an intelligent plot coming from the conspiracy of the NASA lunar-landing cover-up which also involves the Russian space program and Chernobyl. These turn out to be just an exercise in 'historical name-dropping' to spur our interest before we get to the demolition derby created by the Transformers. Indeed, some of the robots seem to emote better that the live cast. Cybertron leader Sentinel Prime, for example, is even designed to look like Leonard Nimoy (who provides its voice), complete with stuff that looks like beard. Again, the problems of the previous installments recur - like the confusion between the good and bad robots in the clashes.

Unlike the first two movies, there are no more gags about the shock of humans interacting with the mechanical 'bots. Bay, however, insists on some comic sequences and he has hired Ken Jeong to do his in-your-face shtick as Jerry Wang. John Turturro reprises his role as former FBI agent Simmons but this time around, Turturro finds it fit to clown around with his role. The most striking inclusion to the cast is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley as Sam's love interest. However, with limited acting talent, she provides only eye-candy and beside her, Megan Fox would look like an Oscar-caliber actress.

Like the first "Transformers", this one is also a live-action cartoon on a grand scale. Scenes of Chicago buildings being toppled and destroyed can be as spectacular and brain-numbing as those of September 11; and the wing-suit flying sequences are breath-taking. Indeed, these are what most of Michael Bay's fans pay for and they will not be disappointed. The only problem for me is that Bay prolongs and repeats the robotic clash sequences to the point of being self-indulgent. Technically brilliant and visually arresting, "Dark Of The Moon" lacks heart and soul. (limchangmoh.blogspot.com)

196 out of 320 people found the following review useful:
Where will the explosions stop?, 28 June 2011

Author: tbmforclasstsar from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Around a half hour into watching the third installment in the Michael Bay driven Transformers franchise, a very serious thought entered my head.

"What the f*** is this movie?"

I really am not sure where to begin when discussing such a chaotic mess that seemed like a 6 hour movie stuffed into a two and a half hour potato sack and beaten repeatedly with a pillow case filled with bars of soap.

I guess we can start with the goals that seemed to be laid out in making this third film.

First off, action and CGI were, without a doubt, the number one priority in this film. This makes complete sense. The action and CGI is really exciting to look at and a getaway for some viewers when they see a film; robots transforming from cars, buildings collapsing from the sky, soldiers flying into battle in wing suits, and what must have been thousands of explosions all in 3D.

The next objective had to be comic relief. If you are a minor character, you will say something funny. If you are a small transforming robot, you will definitely say something funny. Don't forget to make the jokes a little more vulgar than the first two films and even a little cheesier. Cheese sells.

The last major objective had to be how much sex appeal can we put in this movie. I suppose when you cast the likes of a Victoria Secret model in her first role in a film (see my previous article about Ms. Huntington-Whiteley from yesterday) and the hunky doctor from Grey's Anatomy your film is set to draw boys and girls alike.

The film accomplishes all of these goals, but at what cost (now it's as if I'm talking in an Optimus Prime voice). What about story? Coherence? Character development? Audience to character relationship?

It seems like I am just beating a dead horse over and over again (or a horse that surely does more coke than Tony Montana when directing his films), but I am more and more offended each time I see a Michael Bay film. Even more so, I am offended every time some moron in the theater tonight started clapping when Bumble Bee had a stellar looking upper cut kill or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley stood slow-mo with explosions blasting all around her (not joking, they clapped).

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is a bumbling mess of fire and loud noises and is just another film for Michael Bay to add to the references on his resume for most ridiculous director of all time.

Even worse is the flow and logic of Dark of the Moon. I have seen plenty of films to accept that not understanding what is going on doesn't really matter, but it is different with a mainstream blockbuster. When watching a David Lynch film, you can expect something like this. When watching a film about transforming robots, coherence should be somewhat standard.

For the first hour and a half of the film I had no idea what city the film was in. I heard Sam (Shia LaBeouf) say "DC" early on, so I assumed that was where we were. But then his girlfriend Carly (Huntington- Whiteley) worked at the Milwaukee Art Museum (it took a while to realize that the museum was now fictionally home to her boss) and a fight takes place on a highway listing signs to "Aurora" and "Rt. 20" (names that any Chicago kid would recognize). Hell, the headquarters of NEST is clearly the downtown loop area.

So after a certain transformer leaves the NEST headquarters and is next to the reflecting pool in DC moments later, I thought "either Bay has decided his audience will have no idea what length of time passes from cut to cut or Milwaukee and Chicago are now Washington DC." I think the answer is the latter, but I am still not sure.

This is just one example of the incoherence that can be found in this film (like how Bumble Bee saves Sam in the middle of the battle and moments later is on his knees for execution by the hands of the decepticons). It is bewildering how unorganized this film is.

Maybe the final goal of Michael Bay in this film was to bring back memories of some of the most significant events in the United States since the 1960s. The film includes the Apollo 11 story, a rocket ship blowing up after take off that is extremely familiar to the Challenger explosion in 1986, and, as if the event being referenced wasn't fresh in many minds, sky scrapers tumbling to the ground and characters falling out of windows to their death.

There seemed to be no goal to the film other than mind fluff; expensive, loud, and annoyingly repetitive mind fluff. As a major credit to the special effects and CGI team, the film's action is a tremendous accomplishment. The problem is the success is contained in a film that has absolutely no other redeeming qualities.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is almost too bad to describe. I would like to say it contains the worst story and flow in any movie I have ever seen, but that would just seem overly dramatic.

I will say this, there were much better ways I could have spent my $15.50 and two and a half hours of my life than seeing this film. There have been enough films with explosions in the last five years to not have one for another 50.

234 out of 406 people found the following review useful:
Transformers 3: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 28 June 2011

Author: Tom Orrow from United Kingdom

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Man, so much stuff happens in this damn movie. One can only scratch the surface of what the movie has to offer when reviewing it. The best I can do is list the best and worst of it.

The Good

The best thing about these movies is how they look, how well the transformers integrate into the real-life footage to make a compelling action sequence. Here it's cranked to eleven, and the CG is very impressive. On the larger shots, even tiny transformers far in the background look convincing.

There a several action set pieces (specifically towards the end) which are easily some of the best of the trilogy. The whole scene with the collapsing building and the tracking shot of Optimus slicing and smashing his way through a bunch of decepticons are colossal showstoppers.

This is also one of the best 3D movies to date. One major critique of 3D is that 3D glasses make the film darker, but here they do a very smart thing, the film itself is brighter than your average movie and this problem evens itself out. Another thing that worried me before I saw it is that if there was so much high-speed action maybe that and the combination of 3D would give me motion sickness, end of the movie: no problems.

The Bad

The villains suck. Megatron does absolutely nothing throughout the whole film until right at the end, and even that was a let down. Shockwave appears briefly at the start and vanishes for two hours, he himself doesn't actually do much, it's all down to this big nameless tentacle-clad decepticon he works with. Starscream does nothing, but then he never did anything anyway. I'm not even going to mention Patrick Dempsey. But the biggest let down is with the movies main villain "Sentinel Prime". Basically he is Optimus' predecessor but he changed sides to the decepticons and made a deal with Megatron to bring life back to their home planet Cybertron. This is the driving element of the movie, but there are many plot holes from this. Early in the film Optimus basically says he wants to make Sentinel Prime leader of the autobots again, and offers him the matrix (an item that brings dead transformers back to life) but Sentinel Prime declines. Then he changes sides. Why did he decline taking the matrix? it would in definitely be a help in his ploy. Sentinel Prime gets numerous chances to kill Optimus once and for all, but like all lousy villains he delays his hand and Optimus lives.

The product-placement is out of control. I am not joking when I say there is a scene where Shia LaBeouf stops the movie to recite a Mercerdes Commercial

The annoying characters from the last movie are gone, save one. The little autobot who humped Megan Fox's leg makes a return. Just be thankful there's no Skids and Mudflap

The Down-Right Ugly

The acting here is a range from Tolerable to Impossibly-Bad. There are actors here that have been in some high quality material that just blatantly signed onto this because A) they wanted a paycheck B) they have nothing else on their schedules I mean John Malkovich and Frances McDormand are Oscar nominees who are so unbelievably bad in this movie they make Shia Lebeouf look like Laurence Olivier and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is the stiffest most wooden actress i've seen in ages. John Turturro is awkward but after three movies I don't care anymore.

Stereotypes a-hoy, not as prominent as before but it's here. We have: Tyrese Gibson and some other black guy fist-bump and ridicule one another. We have LeBeouf call a Japanese man "Moto-Mushi-Ichi" and decepticons with dreadlocks. Plus that gay guy from the hangover makes an appearance as some loony scientist, but luckily Michael Bay had the sense to drop him out of a window.

Some visceral "American" moments, like using the moon landing to spark the movies plot. Also blowing up the statue of Lincoln to let Megatron sit on the chair instead. Since i'm British I didn't care for these scenes that are obviously meant to say to American audiences: "These decepticons are blowing up America! Damn Them!"

In Conclusion, I may have some major complaints with this movie but it is a ton of fun. The movie delivers on everything it promises and everything you expect and not a single dull moment. If you loved the first movie, and loved the second movie (god help you) I can guarantee you will love this movie even more. I'd say the definitive summer film this year has been made clear.

So.. Viewing Audience.. Roll Out...

159 out of 261 people found the following review useful:
terrible, stupid, ridiculous, 29 June 2011

Author: xaositect-93-977101 from Hungary

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

i checked IMDb today after i came home from the cinema, and saw that the movie has almost 7 points... i just had to register to write this review.

It was absolutely terrible. In advance, i'd like to apologize for using the world "ridiculous" too many times, but that's the best one to describe this masterpiece. of course one would expect that a story about 30 m high robots is a little bit ridiculous, but it was really over the top. After things started going, there wasn't a single minute in the film where something utterly ridiculous did not happen. So many examples... I'll list some of them and some of my problems

- the chick checks the 2 evil robots with the spyglass, sees that they have an argument. later on, she decides to turn megatron against the bearded guy (the super villain high tech robot megatron), and she persuades him. yeah, that's right. that's some neat intrigue you might expect from hose luis Fernando from a Brazilian soap opera, you get it here with a super robot in a 100 million dollar budget film with Steven Spielberg's name.

- they don't stop telling each other secrets of the government. no question, no reason, it's needed because the story can't progress, so why not tell something that's been a state secret for 30 years, or even yell it in front of 30 people. every time this happens, you just ask loudly in your chair: WHY THE HELL DID HE TELL THAT? but there's never an answer

- no one thinks forward in the movie, not even the decepticons. the bug just came off the main guy's wrist after the decepticons thought the auto bots left.why the hell did it come off and just left the guy that has been a major pain in the ass for the decepticons in the past decade? why didn't it stay on him or kill him? humans don't kill each other, even if it would be in their best interest. no, they let the hostage live and tell secrets so he can escape and ruin their plans. the robots somehow avoid killing humans until the last part of the movie

- the movie has some weird comical parts, some of them childish, and they don't kill any humans in the first half of the movie. but then there is a gay joke and at the end the human killing strangely begins, decepticons shoot people to ash and their skull rolls on the ground after they evaporated. so please mr bay, decide if you want a movie for the audience of spy kids,and don't show sexual/violent stuff, or make a scifi for adults, and don't make it retarded.

- they replaced Megan fox with this blonde chick, a significant portion of the movie was centered around her ass or boobs. this was actually a semi-valid reason to look at this terrible piece of a movie, but is this really justified in a sci-fi?. and btw she's 10 cm higher than the protagonist and she can't act.

- they keep fighting with idiotic weapons, optimus even has a flame ax or what the heck now. really. super high tech robots equipped with huge ass cannons fight like tom cruise in the last samurai with close combat weapons. optimus prime even had some kind of fight position at the start of one fight, like a martial artist, which looked really stupid.

- they couldn't think of a decent new villain, so they just repeated the one in the last episode. an ancient robot on top of a big building doing some kind of intergalactic mambo jumbo for half an hour. pretty lame, also what's up with robots having beard mustache hair out of metal, it isn't bad ass it's idiotic

- starscream has the ability to shoot a missile that utterly destroys a gigantic space ship full of auto bots. meanwhile throughout the movie the high tech super intelligent robots keep fighting with knives and swords. no comment

- the trend continues, new robots appear that resemble some ridiculous characters. we have a fat robot now, old ones with beard and male pattern baldness, troll doll robot, an eagle robot (that flies with metallic wings, not engines), megatron gets a hood and looks like some dark wanderer now, and my favorite, his lackey, the HUNCHBACK robot. yeah, that's right. megatron has the robot version of the hunchback of Notre dame. that sole character, that they attempted to take it seriously made the whole thing retarded, even without the countless other stupid characters and scenes of the movie that would only satisfy a mentally handicapped teenager

- laws of physics work differently in the movie. collapsing buildings/robots avoid humans, a metallic building structure hangs in the air in a ridiculous position, the scientist robot sucks a whole metal PLANET through a portal right next to earth and nothing happens (and btw first the summoning is interrupted and there is a planet cut in half near earth, with a plainly cut surface at the intersection, and then the summoning is restored and it CONTINUES to come out of the portal.). somebody before this planet-portal scene mentions that they wanna make the humans slaves to rebuild the planet.later, robots are slaying humans left and right, killing everyone. that's clever, killing your slaves

- full of idiotic clichés like the grand American speech of the commander to talk soldiers into impossible mission, "we only need one shot", etc, really anyone finds these cheap and bad

- the protagonist's parents are so annoying, they make you wanna kill the writer of the script slowly and painfully

-etc etc

could go on for about 3 pages... really, don't watch this movie if you want yourself good. visuals make it a worthy 2/10

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