Transformers: Dark of the Moon

I'm sure much dubiousness will surround the release of this flick, it is, after all, the three-quel to a sequel that wasn't needed. The last film sucked so much I couldn't bring myself to watch it on the weekend in order to 'brush up' on my Transformerness... Is the third time the charm? One thing it has going for it is the lack of Megan Fox, but is that enough to save the franchise? We'll see...
Michael 'Ka-Blammo' Bay, director of the first and second Transformers films, must be a sucker for punishment, taking the helm of a dying ship in the hopes of raising it and a few bucks on the way. Screenwriter Ehren Kruger who wrote the last Transformers film is back again too.
Dubiouser and dubiouser... although Steven Spielberg has an Executive Producer credit, maybe there is hope.
We learn that the Apollo moon landing in the 60s was due to a race against the Russians to investigate something that landed on the moon. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, in their 21 minutes radio silence, discovered an Autobot ship with all kinds of neat stuff in it including Sentinel Prime voiced by Leonard Freaking Nimoy!
Mercedes.
In the present, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf - Transformers 1&2) has moved to Washington after breaking up with his last girlfriend (she who shall not be named). During a meeting in the Whitehouse, Sam not only gets a medal from President Obama but he also picks up a nice English lass, Marley (model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Sam gets a job with the hilarious yellow-freak Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich - RED). His girlfriend works for car enthusiast Dylan (Patrick Dempsey - Gray's Anatomy).
Lenovo.
Things on Earth have been pretty peaceful after the last flick until, the Decepticons raise their metal heads and start to cause a ruckus. They want the things found in the ship on the moon, kinda like the portable transporter pad things they use on away missions on Star Trek - one of the many, many things in this flick that are like things from Star Trek...
Head of the National Something Agency, Mearing, (Frances McDormand - Burn After Reading) doesn't like being called ma'am but did have a secret crush on former Sector 7 agent and now successful author, Simmons (John Turturro - Transformers). Mearing is quick to follow orders when the Decepticons trick the US Government into sending the Autobots away for good. With no one to stop them (that isn't a sentient machine thing) the Decepticons are free to carry out their plan of world domination... Or are they????
Trump Tower.
There is so much going on here and every ten minutes or so there is another super duper actor to join the cast: John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Ken Jeong (Community), Alan Tudyk (Firefly), Buzz frikken Aldrin! Oh, and Bill O'Reilly. Pfft.
Rosie hyphen-Whiteley is no Megan Fox, which is a blessing, but she's only mildly better than her predecessor. I cared more about Bumblebee than I did about her. If there is a follow-up (which I doubt given the way it ended, but then again, this is Hollywood...) I do hope they get someone who can act!
There is a tonne going on in the film, and with it running over two and a half hours, they probably could have cut at least a good half hour from it.
The special effects are really, really well done. The bits with the buildings falling over were way cool. I thought the film might be a bit too quick for 3D but it wasn't blurry and they even did a few action sequences in slo-mo so you could actually see what was going on which was nice. I read that some of these sequences were shot in 2D and converted to 3D post production, on a scale of 1-to-Clash of the Titans, the image quality is quite good! The soundtrack was very Inception-ey with lots of loud horns.
I thought they milked the Star Trek thing a bit too much by having Nimoy say a few lines made famous by Spock in the original series. Those transporter things really did look like the pillars they use on away missions, I won't spoil (much) but something looked an awful lot like how Vulcan blew up in the last Star Trek film...
Did you notice the product placement throughout this post? The film was full of it. I wonder how much Donald Trump paid to have the actors say 'Trump Tower' every five minutes in the end. Geez Louise. Yes, the Mercedes was very pretty but you don't have to make the film sound like an ad for the car.
There are a few questionable plot points, why have one pillar transporter thing that controls all the pillar transporter things? Don't robots have infra-red? What is a girl like Marley doing with a guy like Sam in the first place?
This is a Michael Bay film and if it's bang-for-your-buck (and gratuitous arse-shots) that you're after, he certainly delivers.
Things I learnt: the needs of the many do indeed outweigh the needs of the few, unless you're talking about eradicating the human race; dudes flying in squirrel suits are awesome; totally bummed that the only things my car turns into are corners (boom tish).
Shiny.
Six out of ten.