In 2007, director Michael Bay brough the classic Hasbro toys to the big screen with the incredibly fun and big budget TRANFORMERS movie. It was a smart and funny (and at times surprisingly serious and intense) adaptation of the childhood toy heroes. In 2009, Bay gave us a sequel with TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, but that outing was a little too over the top with its overly-complicated storyline, and more often than not failed with its humor and overly-stylized direction. However, they do say “third time is the charm”, though lately Hollywood’s third outings of popular franchises have been highly disappointing (THE MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS and PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN: AT WORLD’S END come to mind). Bay has acknowledged that the second film in the franchise wasn’t what they wanted it to be, and promised audiences the third installment would make up for that. This week TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON hits theaters… and many are wondering if Michael will be eating his very expensive words.

This story opens with narration from Autobot leader Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) explaining how the war of his homeworld Cybertron led to a ship called The Ark fleeing the battle in hopes of finding a way to rebuild, but the craft crash-landed on our moon, and by order of then President John F. Kennedy (a scene that is in this movie) was secretly investigated in the 1960’s by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during their famous touchdown on the grey rock. Cut to present day, and Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is dating a new knockout girl named Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), living in her extravagant home, and trying desperately to get a job. Despite being instrumental in saving the world twice over, and even getting a special medal from President Obama (again, a scene that is in this movie), Sam can’t seem to find himself any employment that means anything to him – and of course this is especially disheartening when his girlfriend has a fancy job working for a hotshot car collector named Dylan (Patrick Dempsey). His parents show up to give him a pep talk, but seem more content to live comfortably in their luxury bus. The Transformers our young hero once stood side by side with now assist the U.S. government in taking out potential threats around the world. While escorting Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and his military team to Chernobyl in Russia, they discover a deadly Decepticon named Shockwave (voiced by Frank Welker), and uncover a plot in which several scientists involved in specific research are being killed off one by one. Optimus Prime and his autobots confront government agent Mearing (Frances McDormand) about keeping Cybertron technology secret for the past 50 years, and the trust between the friendly robots and the people of earth becomes strained. After bringing the abandoned mentoring autobot Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy) down from the moon, Optimus attempts to find out what went wrong, and ultimately discovers the most dangerous threat the earth may ever face.

To say TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON is better that the second movie is a definite. To say it’s on par with the first outing is probably a stretch. Time and advances in technology and special effects have definitely benefited the overall style and presentation of the film, making this easily the most impressive-looking of the trilogy. The plentiful action sequences feature cheer-inducing moments of awe and wonderment, giving the audience their money’s worth visually. But beyond that what do we have? This is where we split the camps and find out who is a fan of Michael Bay movies and who is not. Granted, even the most hardcore fans can probably admit the guy is the very definition of “style over substance”, but when it comes to big summer movies that’s not necessarily a bad thing… or at least it doesn’t have to be. I love some of Bay’s previous works – BAD BOYS is a favorite, THE ROCK is solid fun, and I’m even apologist for ARMAGEDDON as a big summer blockbuster, because as a big summer blockbuster it works. I should also note I thoroughly enjoyed the first TRANSFORMERS movie, because it was (to me) the perfect “popcorn” flick. I guess there’s also the added bonus of seeing toys I played with as a kid realized expensively on the big screen. But in the sequel department, Michael Bay has left a lot to be desired. BAD BOYS II was overly-long (a frequent Bay problem), flashy and ineffective, and TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN was basically kind of a mess. Like many I hoped this new installment would go back to the spirit of the first movie, and in some ways it does. In other ways it feels like a morphing of style for Bay, in that he’s going even more broad with the comedy, and much darker with the action. Some of the comedic scenes with Shia LaBeouf’s character are very broad, almost vaudevillian, though they work well on the audience who need to be able to laugh every now and then in a giant movie like this. Then there’s the dark moments, which in this outing get really heavy. You’ve never seen carnage against humans in a TRANSFORMERS movie the way you will here. I actually found some of it rather shocking, but in a good way. It’s the sort of thing that makes you feel like this franchise is maturing with its intended audience that started with it six years ago. And after all, what difference does it make seeing giant robots fight each other if there isn’t some potential collateral damage to human life… and here there really is.  I can only imagine what the implied body count in this movie would total out to.

The acting for the most part is fine. Shia has got the whole “reacting to intense moments” thing down so well, you almost wonder if Bay even has to tell him how to act at this point. There’s some good moments of emotion for LaBeouf to play in the script by Ehren Kruger (who co-wrote part 2), and the popular actor does a good job of selling the mostly-CGI events happening around him. While I’m still not sure how Shia ever became a leading man (Hollywood bewilders me sometimes), I never can seem to find many reasons to complain about him in movies, and this is another example of his capable talent. The absence of Megan Fox is quickly filled by Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who holds her own with even the biggest names in the cast. I still contend it would have been nicer to see a slightly more realistic-looking girlfriend for Shia, but there’s even a joke aimed at the fact he gets these amazing hotties so consistently. One thing that is nice about Rosie’s character is a more aggressive sense of involvement in Sam’s life. Their relationship actually seems a bit more genuine that the previous outings with Megan Fox ever could. Yeah, it’s still hard to imagine those two together, but somehow it kind of works here. Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson are both present, but have been separated story-wise, so they never intersect until very late in the film. Duhamel’s role has grown in leadership, and he’s now sitting side by side with the generals and top brass. I was a little upset to see him away from the action, though the final act makes up for that. Tyrese does good playing the familiar ally, but his character has gone through some significant changes as well. John Turturro is back, joined by a flamboyantly funny Alan Tudyk, both of who add some effective comic relief to scenes bordering on being too serious. Frances McDormand and Patrick Dempsey show up in antagonistic roles. McDormand brings some gravitas to the film, though still seems somewhat out of place – I can honestly say I never thought I’d see Frances and Michael Bay work together in my lifetime. Dempsey has fun playing a somewhat too familiar boss to Rosie’s character, oozing over-confidence and smarminess. It’s actually refreshing to see him break away from his GREY’S ANATOMY personality. John Malkovich wins the award for “most awkwardly included actor”, showing up as a somewhat interesting boss to Shia, but literally disappearing from the film about halfway through, leaving us to wonder why he was ever there to begin with. There’s brief performances by COMMUNITY‘s Ken Jeong, who is almost too over the top even for a Bay film, and it’s nice we see Glenn Morshower back (albeit sparingly) as General Morshower. Leonard Nimoy providing the voice of Sentinel Prime is a welcome addition, and there’s more than a few STAR TREK jokes forced into the film for his benefit.  That guy’s voice was made to be in a TRANSFORMERS movie, and they use it to its full extent here – Nimoy is perhaps the most-welcome addition to the cast.

The action sequences are pretty incredible, especially some of the more specific fights between the bigger-named bots. Bay finally learned to pull back the camera a bit and let us see a tad more of what’s going on and who is beating who. There’s also some fantastic sequences of real life action, such as flying squirrel paratroopers soaring through downtown Chicago – an amazing scene. Is it entertaining? Yes. Does it look good? Absolutely. But this third outing suffers once again from the typical Bay overindulgence in both running time and flashy shots for no good reason. I look at it this way, if you’re watching a Michael Bay movie you should pretty much know what to expect now, but that doesn’t prevent some people from laughing at what shouldn’t necessarily be funny. My biggest complaint (outside of the two hour and 36 minute running time, which didn’t have to be that length) is the abrupt ending with zero resolve to the epic story we sat through. Without going into details, there are events that happen in the film that are world-changing, and when it’s over… it’s just over. No epilogue, no discussion of how things move forward from there, just credits. Oh, and there’s a rather oddly placed comedic scene as the credits start to roll which seems tonally awkward considering what comes just before it. I’m not sure if they just wanted to wrap it up quick or ran out of money (which based on what’s on the screen would be VERY believable), but the ending really feels truncated.

Is this the epic third installment that will have fans reeling with satisfaction? Perhaps for some, but others may walk out feeling indifferent. It’s definitely an impressive piece of entertainment, and substantially better than the second outing, but still falls short of the first movie’s magic. TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON succeeds in being a “big summer movie”, but still lacks some of the “charm” expected of that “third time.”

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