Make it stop, please.

Rating: 2/10 (6 July 2011)

Picking up where the previous one left of this one starts with several transformers living on earth, more or less at peace with human civilisation. This all changes when an old government secret is uncovered. From there on things start to get nasty and the world once again needs to be saved by the Megatron and his metallic friends.
After seeing the second one I wasn't expecting too much of this one. Where the first one had a story and a decent amount of CGI the second one had no story and nothing but CGI. For some reason I was thinking this one couldn't be worse than that second one. But alas, it is.
On the one side it offers what is to be expected - explosions and fire, and lots and lots of action sequences. On the other side it offers the return of some of the older characters - and a shipload of new ones. Now that wouldn't be too bad - if only they would fit in the story and would do what they were supposed to do. What I found more than mildly irritating for instance was the fact that the Sam Witwicky character had to start all over when it comes to trust from the government agencies.
Add to that that at least one character was hopelessly miscast - Patrick Dempsey does not belong in this film, at least not in the role he plays, it doesn't suit him at all and it shows in the way it comes to the screen.
Then it seems they tried to save the film by applying the old trick of opening a can of known actors/actresses in the hopes they can turn lead into gold. The trick never worked and it doesn't work in this one. What's Frances McDormand doing in this film? She can do a lot better. The same for John Malkovich. John Turturro is about the only big name that I can like in this film - but that's because he has a long history of odd little roles and the one he has in this film suits.
Last but surely not least, the 3D. This can be described by asking one question: What 3D? There's next to none and where it is visible it doesn't add anything.
So, all in all, an utter waste of celluloid.
2 out of 10 robots no longer disguised