Transformers 3: The Dark Of The Moon

The Flick: Transformers 3: The Dark Of The Moon

The Peeps: Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Frances McDormand, Alan Tudyk, John Malkovich, etc.

The Dealio: The Toys With Attitude R Back. With a bigger budget. The (Earth- and Earthling-friendly) Autobots become aware that a spacecraft- the Ark- that carried an Autobot leader, (the Leonard Nimoy-voiced Sentinel Prime), to swing the outcome in the final battle for supremacy on home planet Cybertron, was hit by enemy fire and crashed on the Moon. Now, there is evidence that not only was the crash site was uncovered by astronauts during the first lunar landing, but also, that pieces recovered at the crash site were brought back to planet Earth. And, of course, placed in hyper-secrecy, in some sort of ultra-safe, Health and Human Services urban storage facility slash car-impound lot. In downtown Chicago. Well, at least it's not NYC or LA.
Fast-forward to present day, when our hero, Sam, is being a) supported by new hot-babe-GF, Carly, b) hounded by his RV-wheelin' folks to just get a job and c) fighting jealousy of Carly's multi-millionaire-boss, Dylan, who, clearly, is after his girl.
After failing to land job after job, Sam wanders into the madhouse masquerading as a high-tech firm run by Malkovich's Bruce Bezos. He is offered a job...as a mail-room attendant. Which he accepts. Chaos ensues as he is sought out by a weird- and weirdly paranoid new coworker (the frenetic and vastly amusing Ken Jeong) and given a cache of documents outlining some strange doings afoot in the great Chicago metroplex. Before you can say 'Autobots, transform!' Sam and Co. are back in the Decepticon-hunting biz.

The Grading Session: 4.00612 pengies out of 5. Where do I start? OK, how about here: what did you think you were going to get when you walked into a theatre offering a movie called Transformers 3? Most of the special effects were decent. The soundtrack was clever and well-placed. Everyone got to shine for a few moments, and that can be challenging when you have to act to a blue/green screen. Face it, no one chews scenery better than Malkovich (OK, sorry, Christopher Walken. You do, sir). Turturro returns as conspiracist-in-recovery Seymour, and McDormand does her blandly-threatening bit as Sec Def. But this movie was still waaaaaaay too long. There is no excuse for this to go on so long that even viewers who roared with approval when the theme music came up in the beginning, began to grumble in their seats.

Lessons Learned: Again with the aliens/alien spacecrafts-as-bugs? Come on, peeps, let's get a little more creative. Next, in the words of Tyrese's Chief Epps: 'Why do the Decepticons always get the best ess-aitch-eye-tea?' Please see my rantique of X-Men: First Class. For the life of me, I can not see how the good guys ever win in these deals where they are out-gunned, out-finessed and out-numbered by the bad guys...until they do. This seems to be a historical template, dating back from Star Wars. Maybe earlier. Lastly this: Do not go to work for a guy who will not let you have red coffee cups on a yellow floor. This way lies madness. And, maybe, doing battle with some bug-esque creatures.