Bay tried to deliver on his promise of a more developed story but failed miserably...but at least he gave us a good action movie

Rating: 7/10 (29 June 2011)

Transformers 1 still remains the best of the lot in terms of story and the joy of watching the robots transform. By the third part it becomes quite ordinary and mundane.
The positives: The action sequences are done quite well. With the way technology is advancing it's quite amazing at how quickly sequences can become bigger, better and longer. If the humans portion was cut out of the movie entirely it would be an even better movie to watch.
It is a million times better than the abominable ROTF.
John Malkovich in his short role is quite funny, as is John Turturro, even if he is still OTT in his diminished and toned down role.
The transformers, both good and bad, are quite excellent. Sad to say but they're better actors than the humans.
The slightly sub par: The new girl: I have to admit that she wasn't as bad as I thought she would be acting wise but she was still nothing special. In fact her role was completely pointless and there was a point where she's interacting with the transformers as she's been in the previous 2 movies and took herself way too seriously at times. Even a muppet on a stick could have done the same job, for less money, and with the same result. But she is still a lot better than Megan Fox...
The negatives: The lack of consistent humour, which was quite funny and welcome in the first movie. Instead there are some sexual gags and jokes which are quite lame.
The slow motion of the new girl's body: I like it when a camera focuses on a hot girl but the way Bay did it made me feel sleazy and cheap. It was there in the first movie but done quickly and more tastefully. Here, it's so blatant that it's annoying, as if it had to be part of the script or else the movie would fail.
The plot: there is none, or more to the sense there is nothing original to the plot of the movie. It follows the basic principle of just about every trilogy ender: have a giant war/battle that lasts more than an hour. It seems that the plot was written after the action scenes were mapped out because it's a jumbled mess with a lot of stop and go.
The cheesy ending: a typical Michael Bay ender. NO spoilers required. Who said this guy could direct movies? Too many human actors: just about everyone from the first two movies are in it and there are new people added. There's no time to draw out anyone's back story and you just don't care for Sam and the rest of the humans this time round.
Not enough time spent on the robots: This movie, as well as the others, starts of as Transformers, not Humans. There are new transformers but they are either not identified or done too quickly for us to register before the start of a action sequence so it becomes confusing whether they are autobots or decepticons.
All in all, it's a teenager's action movie wetdream and they'll love it. But for the cynical it's a wasted effort on ending the transformers saga on a high note in terms of a good story. If there is another movie in the works I really hope that Michael Bay is not there to ruin it. George Lucas destroyed the first three Star Wars movies with his "vision." Let's hope that Michael Bay is not round to repeat the same mistake...