Had it's moments, but overall disappointing

Rating: 4/10 (1 July 2011)

What to say about it, exactly? I love the first two films, and I was pretty excited to see this. I was already annoyed/bummed that they had replaced Megan Fox, but I was hoping it wouldn't be too big of a deal. Because I had fairly high expectations, I ended up being disappointed by the entire first half of the movie. It had a very strange, unpleasant feeling to it. The humor was very forced and didn't fit well with the wittiness from the other movies. There were several new side characters, few of whom were at all funny. John Malkovich's part was unnecessary, Frances McDormand fell flat. Ken Jeong was a nightmare who brought The Hangover to Transformers. Alan Tudyk at least provided some good laughs, but his character was also an unnecessary addition to a bloated cast. Even the established characters didn't have that old spark. Sam was reduced to ranting and whining by turn, without the right kind of sarcasm. His parents became caricatures dressed in matching green track suits, who irritated rather than endeared. Even some of the new Autobots were ridiculous, especially in appearance. Only Optimus and Bumblebee felt true to character.
And then, of course, there's the new girl. Carly, a.k.a. Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. With regard to any actual acting, she did alright. Nothing impressive or all that expressive, actually, but she was okay. The thing that I'm most bothered about is the blatant and over-the-top over-sexing of her character. You can so obviously see why Megan Fox declined to return to the role under what I'm sure is the absolutely objectifying and misogynistic direction of Michael Bay. Of course he had to resort to casting a lingerie model! And his unprofessional-ism showed itself in the dialog as well, dismissing the character of Mikaela as 'selfish' and praising the new Carly as someone who 'loves Sam for who he is.' It read way too much like Bay getting a final few jabs in at Megan Fox through the script of his new film.
But there were some redeeming factors that deserve to be mentioned. First of all, the 3D in this movie was admittedly spectacular. Normally I hate 3D with a passion because the darkness added by the glasses and the inevitable headache that ensues, but I had no such problems in this film. And the action scenes were as fantastic as ever, perhaps even better than in the previous films. I must admit that the second half pulled me in and had me on the edge of my seat. There was a wonderfully epic feel to the entire Chicago storyline, which almost made up for the rest of the movie's shortcomings.