Good action movie, but clearly lacks a winning punch

Rating: 5/10 (8 August 2011)

Plot: Optimus is kicking every Decepticon's butt – as a Prime should! But it is sad that there was not that big a build up in terms of rivalry between the Decepticons and Autobots. Important characters like Bumblebee and (even) Optimus seem to get very little screen time.
Genre: It is a pure action film; and nearly two and half hours of it! Gets exasperating after a while; but a bunch of good looking Ferrari's and McLaren's save the day. The story definitely has loopholes – I didn't think for a minute it wouldn't; so no big surprises there.
Special effects (which is the reason why people go to a Michael Bay movie): 3D visuals was good awesome, I've got to admit it. The initial sequences of "clip pasting" from the past did not seem so realistic. In fact those first few screens seemed way too fast; as if the movie couldn't wait to get to the action mode.
Casting and performance: Somehow I NEVER really liked the mom-dad characters of Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf); can do without them really. The new girl (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) is good looking, but doesn't really seem to perform that well esp. in the intense action sequences. LaBeouf does a good job – fighting (whenever armed) and screaming (when disarmed). He seems to have gotten used to his character! Overall, the casting of the movie was not that great and the characters never really seemed to connect emotionally. I felt it could have been better.
Read the full review at http://blog.nrajesh.com/review-transformers-3