Frustrating and shallow beauty

Rating: 2/10 (7 July 2011)

Watching the first 5 minutes of this film I simply disregarded the previous two Transformer films and knew that it was going to be nothing like them.
The film just became frustrating at so many times; like when Dempsey started working for the Decepticons he did it because he wanted to live. OK, I'll give him that. But if he didn't try to re-ignite the Pillar then there would be no way that the Decpticons would win, so he wouldn't need to be enslave and would be free of working for them. Dylan didn't have a clue what he was doing, and it seemed no one in production of Transformers: Dark Of The Moon did either.
And ahhh...you can NOT place a new character in, provide no background of their relationship and expect the audience to empathise with her or relate to her emotions, it just ends up with you hating her and her scary lips that just look swollen (it may look good in photos, but not on film). So you just don't care about Carly, and you don't want Sam to save her because you don't know her. And I know Megan Fox quit/got fired, but there was NOTHING about her, except when he argued with his parents and said something like 'she dumped me, I found someone else'..what? WHAT?! You saved the world TWICE together, vowed your love..WHY did she dump him?! There was no story supporting any of it.
Oh and how did Carly manage to survive all those crashing buildings, sliding on the floor, running through explosions and being thrown around by robots in heels and not have a SINGLE mark on her, with her white clothes looking impeccable, when Sam's were torn, his face dirty and bleeding?
Turturro was OK in this, not as compelling as in the other films, but he wasn't in it as much. It was just at the end of the film when the Autobots were 'leaving' which was almost sad with Bumblebee's departure, ruined by Simmons in his chair with his lame leg and un-humorous comic appearance.
The plot was weak and there was no depth. There was nothing connecting the previous films, they just defeated Decepticons back, finding new ways to destroy the planet: first they wanted to destroy it, then blow up the sun, now rebuild their planet. There was no humour, and the mum wasn't on form with her one awkward sex comment.
And the typical annoyance of the bad guy telling the good guy the bad guy's plot shone brightly. I would have thought Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg could come up with something better than that, it offends me that they don't seem to care, and care only about making money by putting in the MILLION product placement ads.. jeesh it gave me a headache: the Mercedes ad, the Nike trainers, the posters, the drinks it's just too much!. I don't know what LaBeouf was thinking when he said this was the best of the three films.
And if they wanted to enslave the human race to rebuild their planet WHY DID THEY KEEP KILLING THEM!?? How are humans meant to survive on their planet without food or oxygen? And the idea of Cybertron coming to Earth.. has Michael Bay not heard of gravity? It's quite important really, it would mean Cybertron and Earth would collide and both planets would be destroyed. So therefore the whole film is pointless, unrealistic and a shambles.
The robots were weird: the old robot and the small one (that looked like Frankenstein's Igor) with the strange? I didn't understand why they bled? Obviously trying to humanise them for the audience to relate with them, it made no sense, because they are metal.
So much was unrealistic: when you are thrown through the air, free falling at about the rate of 80mph and caught by a METAL robot, ITS GOING TO HURT!!! Then you have the stupid 'ray guns'? I guess that's what they were - when the Decepticons killed the humans-_- why did the clothes survive and not the body?
And I was overly disappointed with Optimus. He was barely in it for two hours, and when he arrived it was so unspectacular and casual it's like it never even happened.
I wanted this film to be good, like the first film was, and even the second I guess, but they just focused so much on the CGI (which were amazing-except for when Starscream was tossing virtual-Sam around which reminded me of early Harry Potter films when Harry played Quidditch), sex appeal and money that they lost their values and the point of the film. I wished they would have connected the three films more, interlinked the plots more so that you could understand previous plots or develop future plots, but they seemed to forget all the other films, just like an episode of South Park: Kenny dead, Kenny alive.
But I applaud the CGI, and the amazing visuals and beautiful landscapes, making it epic to the eye, but to the mind it bored and frustrated you to no end. This was a rant filled review, but to say I didn't enjoy it AT ALL would be a lie. I just wanted so much more from it and it just didn't provide what it needed to. You could consider it as art: beautiful but mind-bogglingly confusing.
The people who clapped at the end of this film purely clapped not because it was a good film, but because they enjoy Transformers and WANTED it to be a good film. And you shouldn't clap anyway; Michael Bay can't hear you and the Odeon workers don't care if you enjoyed it or not, they just want you to leave so they can find your forgotten bags and go home.