Review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) by Chris Y — 25 Dec 2016

The third installment in the series is noticeably better than the second, even if it still faces similar problems that have continually plagued this franchise.

Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. When a mysterious event from Earth's past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us.

The "Transformers" franchise has faced its ups and downs, albeit mostly downs. But with the third installment, they looked to change a few things up. If anything, all of those changes were really positive overall, but the writers still don't know how to capture that essence of these fun, alien robots and there's still something missing. Although it was a good step in the right direction for this franchise, there's still a lot of work to be done.

Shia LaBeouf returns for the final time, reprising his role as Sam. As a a fan first and "critic" second, I still claim that Shia is a great actor. Although the roles and films he's been in aren't the brightest, it doesn't take away the fact that he's a great actor with a lot of talent. This is someone who can capture that emotional intensity of a role while really bringing out the true nature of the character at hand. I absolutely love Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, as she's a huge step up from Megan Fox. Not that Megan Fox is terrible, but she certainly wasn't the best. Hearing them cast a Victoria Secret Model as the leading female role raised some eyebrows, but she's a pretty decent actress overall and she was utilized much better than Fox's character was. John Turturro was still overused in this film and was much more of an annoyance than a help. His character is still annoying and bratty and he really serves no purpose. They do bring back the crew of Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson, which is a nice continuity aspect for these films.

The special effects, like always, are still fantastic. Despite the ridiculous overuse of firework explosions in random places, you still have to admit that everything looks fantastic. Everything from the transformers to the action, it all looks fantastic. This is a perfect example of the epicness that sci-fi movies should look like, and it's one of the strongest attributes the franchise has held.

The story is a bit better than the previous film, but still a bit overdone and unfathomable at times. I mean, come on, bringing an entire planet over to Earth? How does that even work? How does that solve anything?? Minor spoiler there I guess, sorry. But despite some of those head-scratchers, I like how the story feels darker than any of the previous films. Even the trailers gave off this extremely dark vibe and although the film never really captured that, I liked the slight adjustment in tone.

In the end, there's not much to say about this movie because I would just be repeating what I said about the other films. I feel like at this point, it's just how these movies execute because they all have very similar problems and very similar positives. I did enjoy this more than the second film but not more than the first, and that has to be some sort of consolidation. If you're a fan of the franchise, you'll like this movie. If not, this movie won't offer anything new and will probably just run your patience down to zero.