A franchise that just can't live up to its potential.

Rating: Null/10 (1 October 2011)

Why can't it just be about the robots?
The first Transformers movie struck a decent tone between the humans and the Autobot/Decepticon conflict and mythology. Yes, it was at times silly, but the focus was never totally off of the main characters (and what we want to see from these movies in the first place), the robots.
The second movie took the concept "more is better" and ran with it, to less than satisfactory results. More action scenes and more robots, but also more "wacky humor" and more focus on the humans. It was an indecipherable, overly-long mess that was made to be as loud and eye-catching as possible, but it was a noticeable step down in quality from the first movie.
And now we have the third movie, which turns down the potty humor slightly, but features some awful writing and a story that's just silly. Forcing the character of Sam (Shia Lebeouf) and others to be a part of a plot that they have no reason to be in anymore just adds a lot of unnecessary, empty scenes to a movie that has no business being 2 1/2 hours long. I liked his character in the other two movies, but in this one he's so over-the-top and hysterical that it's annoying, and the storyline with him and his new girlfriend (Rosie Huntington-Whitley) is an uninteresting distraction at best. John Turturro returns again in a role that wore out its welcome about 45 minutes into the first movie, Frances McDormand is wasted, John Malkovich is REALLY wasted, and Alan Tudyk is REALLY. REALLY wasted. Don't expect much from the casting of those fan-favorite actors.
If you're under the impression that I hated Dark of the Moon, that's not true. If you ignore the horrid writing and tune out the parade of annoying or pointless characters, there's a decent action movie buried in here about a bunch of robots smashing and blowing each other up. It's just a shame that so much of the movie is spent on the weakest, least interesting part. It's a great idea to ground such fantastical beings as Transformers in our reality through some human characters to relate to, but if that portion of the equation isn't at least adequate, the whole movie suffers.
Enough of my rambling. If the many flaws of the second movie didn't put you off, then you'll probably like Dark of the Moon even more. The action is easier to follow than in Revenge of the Fallen (though there are virtually no good robot vs. robot fight scenes until the very end of the movie) and the editing overall has been improved. I was just hoping that a better balance between the Transformers and humans would have been found by now, but the scales still tip far too much in the wrong direction.