Laughable plot left me in the dark in Dark of the Moon

Rating: 6/10 (2 July 2011)

For the curious parent:
Here's the bottom line... Some sexual content (the new girlfriend is some sexy supermodel type), but no actual sex scenes. The movie was pretty good. My boys LOVED it (14 & 16)...I thought it was OK. It was just the whole concept; ie the ENTIRE space race in the 60's being based on hiding a Transformer ship that crashed. It was...laughable. They tied in Neil Armstrong's moon landing, there's a cameo with the real "Buzz" Aldren and actual footage of news reports. I enjoyed the cleverly edited footage from the 60's tied in to the movie...I also enjoyed it in Forrest Gump! Also irritating was that their JFK looked absolutely NOTHING like Kennedy! Do we blame casting or makeup? The 3D was meh. This cash grab of filming every summer blockbuster in 3-D for the sake of more dollars, is getting old, fast. The action scenes would have been just as good without it IMO.
If you can get past the seriously laughable plot, and the fact that you've paid an additional $4 per ticket and must now fit 3-D glasses over your prescription ones, then the rest is somewhat enjoyable. Good action scenes. Typical Michael Bay explosions & whatnot. Comical lines by the parents and some very annoying little bots (on the same level of annoyance as Mudflap & Skids from the last installment) I much preferred Shia's chemistry with Megan Fox to Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but they at least managed to explain the switch effectively.
All in all, I just can't not like Shia LaBeouf; Particularly in the role of Sam Witwicky. For his charming performance alone, I'd give it 3½ out of 5 stars or a 7/10