Dark the Moon, the mediocre one

Rating: 6/10 (30 June 2011)

The Transformers series started out quite strong but I knew as I watched that film that any attempt to make a 'bigger' film would end up with a clunky mess. Thus we had 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' which was a terrible in parts, overly complicated and had a dull climax. For these reasons I had pretty neutral expectations going into this film where I expected action by the bucket load but more hoped to gain enjoyment from it this time. The film starts out with our human protagonist Sam played once again by Shia LaBeouf with shoehorned girlfriend Carly played by Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. The reason why I say shoehorned is because there is no introduction, they are just a couple. Of course I realise the absence of Megan Fox but after all Mikaela went through with Sam you'd think something pretty big would end that relationship. Anyway we've got two and a half hours to fill, Sam has to find a job and the Autobots must face off against the Decepticons again. The first act of this film very much feels like filler until the action comes rather than set up and that is where we get most of the 'humour' which falls flat around 60% of the time. I'm not going to get too wound up as if the film got treated completely seriously this time round it would make for a cringe inducing experience. By now though it was more of a slight distraction. Performances wise LaBeouf does a fairly good job with what he's given. Quite a good actor in all honesty and wasn't nearly as annoying as he has the potential to be. Carly, our new female lead is not very good and doesn't provide an improvement on Megan Fox. Maybe its the fault of the script but she was just uninteresting and obviously only really served as eye candy.
Other characters like Simmons returned to inject little to no decent comic relief. Gladly John Turturro is a good enough actor to be in the role and not be bogged down by what he's in. Special effects wise it is mostly more of the same, the action set pieces are better set up and are superior to second film. In truth at times it was spectacular to see especially towards the end before becoming very familiar the more it progressed. This had more to do with the film's run time which again well over two hours, you do have to brace yourself for it as certainly I felt it towards the end of the film. The Transformers looked as good as they ever did and if it is one thing the film gets right is that they did look very real. The Decepticons seemed to have more of a presence this time round as there appeared to more effort put into them as antagonists. They were satisfactory but never came across as particularly menacing as they wouldn't the third film in. The film more works out as a middle ground but could never capture why the first was the best. It is superior to Revenge of the Fallen but the final action climax did very much remind me of when I was bored in the cinema two years ago.
Overall though this is the mediocre edition to the series, its enjoyable on its own merits but not on a general film level. If you want to see this and enjoyed the series so far you'll probably enjoy this one. It is just simply a half decent Transformers film and an average action film.