Brilliant special effect - but what else?

Rating: 6/10 (15 August 2014)

I was extremely disappointed with the latest Transformers movie. Granted, I didn't have much faith in it to begin with as the second one was also a major slope down from the first; however, I didn't think it would be this bad.
OK, so the first thing I noticed was the mysterious disappearance of Megan Fox and the appearance of her replacement it seems Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a British Victoria's Secret Model. Well, where did Megan Fox go?! The only explanation given is that she dumped Sam. There's no hint as to why, when, where etc. This really bothered me for some reason. I'm not a very big fan of Megan Fox but I felt that she played quite a large role in this franchise and I was disappointed that the producers messed with the flow of Transformers by replacing her. This was their first mistake.
Secondly, if I'm perfectly honest I had no frickin' idea what the hay was going on for most of this movie. The first part was all about how sad Sam's life is and how he needs to get a grip, get a job and stop thinking about the decepticons. Whilst all the action is going on in this movie Sam and Carly's relationship unfolds and develops which is a bit distracting for the viewer as the story switches and merges plot lines. Sam is jealous of Carly's relationship with her new boss, a rich man (Patrick Dempsey), who buys her a car and then *shocker* her boss turns out to be in league with the Decepticons.
There is a new bad guy: Sentinel Prime, who in my opinion just looks like a robotic ent. He was Optimus Primer's predecessor and was in charge of guarding the 'Pillars', but he secretly made a deal with Megatron and is now one of the bad guys. Using these Pillars the Decepticons want to set up a teleportation link bringing all the Decepticons to Earth, which has the resources they require. In my opinion this made the film look like a race between giant robots to find some sticks. Meanwhile, the Decepticons are murdering members of the US and Russian space missions to cover their traces, but of course, they're not very subtle about this. (Hint: man mysteriously flies out the window of a high storey building). The Decepticons threaten to wage war on Earth if the humans don't agree to exiling the Autobots, so of course, the humans pack off their only means of protection up in a space shuttle and shoot it into the sky. Then, after a bazillion fires, explosions, special effects, peace is restored - as expected.
I don't know why but for some reason the only thing I could think of every time I saw Shia laBeouf was Even Stevens. I didn't feel this way during the other two movies so perhaps LaBeouf's acting had slipped back into old ways and he was reprising the role of Louis Stevens.
What is quite cool is how they incorporate history into this movie by saying that the 'Space Race' of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR was caused because a Cybertronian spacecraft landed on the moon.
Some people really liked this movie, but for the life of me I cannot figure out why. I guess the special effects are fantastic but it's effect is significantly lessened as there is no plot line to back it up. All in all I thought this movie was a bit of a mess. It lacked plot and detail that was needed and by the end of the movie I could see, hear and think was explosions, explosions, explosions. Thank god this is the last instalment so they can stop tarnishing the name Transformer oh wait that is what I would've said in 2011 but now we've got transformers age of extinction YAY!!!! (Sarcasm)