Baybots 3: Darkside of the Boom

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2011)

It's similar to the other Transformers film in scope and quality, with everything we've come to expect from a Michael Bay film. Explosion should get credit in the cast section, as it probably gets more screen time and audio than anything else in this film. Where to even begin? To be fair, the 3d is very good, and some of the action scenes look very good. It doesn't save the film.
1) Continuiwhatty?: The premise of the film basically ignores the previous plot involving the All Spark. I mean, the really real reason we have Megatron going to Earth is to get the Autobot super weapon to enslave mankind, not the Allspark? Why? In a side by side MacGuffin comparison, the Allspark is so much more important than the Columns to restoring Cybertron, it's barely a comparison. Yet somehow, we are supposed to believe he was really coming to Earth to meet up with Nimoy-bot to enslave mankind. I believe, originally, they had no idea humans were even here.
2)Nonsense Plot: Maybe the new movie will manage to create something deeper with it's plot by ignoring the other films?
*Spoiler Time* So, basic premise- we started the space race and went to the moon to get a UFO. Already, this makes no sense. Why didn't the scientific community, who does a lot more stargazing than the government, detect the quite obvious comet and blip on the moon at some point after the mission was announced? Why didn't we go back to get it once discovered? While there were only supposedly 35 people who knew of this plot, it's just about impossible to believe when you consider all the other scientific organizations around the world who must stay silent and ignorant for such a thing to stay secret. In detail, they used radar dishes from an organization that wasn't created until after the space race to detect the UFO. This puts things on a weak foot to start with.
3) Focus on one dimensional Human characters: Sam has problems. Harped on by his parents for not finding a job three months after graduation from an Ivy league school, while he lives with his super model from Britain. Oh the shame! For some reason, despite being Ivy league, having a presidential medal, etc., he's a bumbling fool in his interviews, and in general. How did he make it through school being this inadequate at basic human functions? Later, he seem to use his Ivy League parkour to dodge and run like a freak through more 3d mayhem! While a great deal of time is spent establishing how much he loves his new model in this movie, I don't really buy it- not because of acting, just because it all feels rushed.
Really, to just skip play by play, there is, once again, excessive focus on people. To be honest, I have to give Michael Bay props on his creativity, because he finds lots of places to avoid having robot on robot conflict. Autobots get captured by Decepticons off screen so we can watch more army guys fighting robots. Long scenes of this, in fact. I think Michael Bay realizes he'll never get this kind of budget again and tried to stick every crazy paramilitary stunt he could into this thing just so he got a chance to do it. Some of it is very pretty though- unfortunately feel very out of place in this movie.
Then there's the stupidity of mankind working with the Decepticons- apparently, smart enough to make energon detectors to warn of decepticon attack, not smart enough to realize the evil robots that have attempted to wipe us out TWICE are just going to do it again. The Autobots then leave us to our doom for a full day, letting the Decepticons murder thousands to show that the Decepticons could not be trusted and so they could get them.
4) We Get It: The Autobots fight terrorists while waiting for Decepticons. The Decepticons double cross humanity when they 'negotiate'. Optimus Prime says freedom enough in this movie so many times I swore he was being secretly piloted by George Bush. Terrorists bad! No negotiate! USA! USA! Agenda pushed. Honestly, the original Decepticons were evil royalty, militaristic vehicles, despots with purple color scheme, versus the working man Autobots, with the red color scheme and all the social service civilian vehicles like firetrucks and such. Corrupt Royalty/Military vs. The Working Man. It wasn't terrorists versus USA. That was GI Joe.
All in All: All flash. It's not a good plot, sub par dialog, and the robot action is set aside to see explosions and people. Coming to the end of the film, I felt so little investment the 'mind blowing' action fell flat- people were in danger but their situation, it's context, how little I felt for them, I simply felt as if I were just being forced to wait through the action to get back to something that almost mattered. Right to the end, I just couldn't care. I am sad I funded future films from this director by seeing it.