Optimus!

This summer the Transformers movie trilogy came to an end with the release of Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. Was it any good? Of course it wasn’t, it was a horrible movie that only has one silver lining: it‘s the last one!

Now, I watched the first Transformers movie when it first came out back in 2007 and it wasn’t too bad. Sure the story is a complete wafer but on the whole it was a decent movie. It didn’t get nominated for any Oscars but it was watchable if nothing else. Transformers 3 however, makes the original look like The Shawshank Redemption!

I’m really trying hard not to talk about the second movie here. It’s like a traumatic experience that I don’t want to go back to, but I will. Sigh. Ok here goes.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen represents one of the lowest points in cinema’s long history. Not just intent on being the worst Transformers movie, this film wanted to be the worst film ever made. And it came bloody close. There is no doubt about it, Transformers 2 is the worst movie of the three. Transformers 3 is better than it - but what isn’t!?

Saying that though there were moments during the third movie where I wanted to say that it was worse than the second. Why? Because it was boring! Really, really boring! Something I did not expect from a Michael Bay movie let alone a Transformers movie! The first hour of this movie is just drivel. At the very start we’re shown some backstory that intertwines with history, American history of course. Turns out the race to the moon wasn’t because of giant leaps for mankind. Instead it was to explore a UFO wreckage.

This wreckage is, as you’ve probably guessed, a Transformer’s ship that crash landed as it tried to escape Cybertron during the war between Decepticons and the Autobots. NASA - or at least some scientists, notices this, and the space race begins as America and Russia fight to get to the spaceship first! Of course America wins, checks it out, takes some rods from the site and then proceeds to, well frolic about in the moon buggy and play golf I suppose. Oh yeah Buzz Aldrin is in this movie, and he isn’t the worst actor in there! He’s part of a hilarious scene where he meets Optimus Prime and says: “it‘s an honour meeting you.” Optimus responds by saying: “The honour is all mine.” Bloody hilarious.

Uncle Sam and friends.

Once this 5 minute intro is done with though, you are going to be waiting a whole hour to be stimulated again. I’m not even exaggerating. First off we’re reintroduced to Sam Witwicky who’s in his apartment with his supermodel girlfriend. But wait, what’s this? You have a different supermodel girlfriend! Of course I knew Megan Fox wasn’t in this movie, due to her calling Michael Bay a certain Nazi, but I didn’t realise that this new girl wasn’t playing the same character. I thought they had just changed actor, not character as well. It wasn’t until the little New Yorker Decepticon from the second movie (commonly known by many as Joe Pesci-bot) starts laying into Megan Fox saying how mean she was to Sam for dumping him.

Okay so there’s a totally new girlfriend! She’s different right? Nope. She’s just eye candy. What is it with Michael Bay and his misogamy? To Michael Bay, women exist to stand around and look pretty, to say things like “say you love me” or to straddle motor cycles while a cameraman humps your leg. What we have here is a like-for-like swap. Okay, she’s not as aggravating or annoying as her predecessor and to be fair to her, considering she has zero acting experience, her acting is much better than Megan Fox’s.

The movie does attempt to show how Sam met his new love. Apparently President Obama gives him a medal (yes they superimpose Obama into a photo with Sam and then show a terrible look-alike walk back to his desk) for all his hard work during the second movie. Where’s my medal for watching that God-damn movie!? After he receives his shiny medal he sees his new girl across the room. I know what you’re thinking; they share a look and fall deeply in love instantly right? No it’s even worse than that. He positions his fingers into the shape of a gun, hangs the medal from it and pretends to fire at the girl. And apparently girls like that crap because she falls for him. Wait… what?

Something I realised about this whole scene was that he meets his new girlfriend after getting his medal, which would have been soon after the second movie ended. Now in the second movie they make a big deal out of Megan Fox wanting Sam to say those three little words, but of course he isn’t ready until the end of the movie where they save the world and inevitably tell each other how much they love one another. All of that was complete tripe then, because mere weeks later, Megan Fox dumps him because it turns out she’s a cold hearted bitch. Well thanks Michael Bay, thanks for making an effort with this new couple’s backstory!

As I say the first hour of Transformers 3 is the most boring hour you’ll have in a while! All you get to see is Sam whinge, moan and complain about how bad his life is. It’s pretty much all he does throught the whole movie, whinge, moan, complain, shout OPTIMUS at the top of his lungs. It appears Sam has finished college now and is looking for work unsuccessfully. Do we care? Of course we don’t, where are the Transformers!?

The biggest problem with not just the third but all of the three movies is the fact that even though it’s called Transformers it’s not about Transformers at all. It’s about humans, the most dull and annoying humans on planet Earth! Why Mickey Bay, Why? There is no way people can actually like the human characters at all! Take our main character, Sam Witwicky. He is, quite frankly, an asshole. All he does in this movie is complain, whine, moan, tell people how great he is or bang on about the medal Obama gave him!

There is one scene where he attends a job interview, as he needs one now he’s left college. His prospective employer is John Malkovich (yes, John Malkovich is in this movie. He’s either lost a horrible bet or has fallen on seriously hard times) who is a slightly weird bloke who serves no purpose in the movie whatsoever! Anyway in the scene Sam tells him that he’s saved his life twice but he doesn’t even know it. Asshole. Sam Witwicky did NOTHING. Last time I checked it was the Transformers who saved the day on both occasions! He just happened to have a pair of glasses owned by his Grandfather.

And if he isn’t bigging himself up to John Malkovich he’s racially abusing a Japanese businessman. Well I say he, what I really mean is Michael Bay is racially abusing a Japanese man. Yes, because he’s Asian his office is more of a dojo than anything else and there are all sorts of stereotypically Asian furniture around along with incense and all the rest of it. It's not too distant from Yoda's house on Dagobah. I’m fairly sure Michael Bay has never left the United States. And why would he want to? Sam bows to his prospective employer and calls him sensei. Oh dear.

They’re back…

Sam isn’t the only human that’ll have you tearing off your finger nails. The parents are back! And they’re just as hilarious as before! I thought they weren’t in it, so imagine my absolute joy when I saw them quite early on in the movie. Now, there are many many things that irritate me in the Transformers movies but nobody infuriates me more than the parents do!

Yep, they’re here again and they’re as cringeworthy as ever. The unfortunate thing about the parents is the humour. It’s terrible, pure and simple. They’ve been in all three of the movies now, and each time they’ve been dire. Remember that infamous scene in the second where they went to college with Sam and embarrassed him at every turn? Watching his mum eat some cannabis brownies and proceed to lark about with the college jocks was enough to turn my skin inside-out. Just writing about it now is enough to send shivers down my body. My hairs are literally on end here.

So what do they do that’s so bad in the latest movie I hear you ask. Well his mum only enquires on the size of his manhood. Yep. I’m not kidding. The crescendo of the parents is quite literally his mother talking about his penis. Oh God I’m starting to turn inside-out again!

Enough about them though, I don’t want any of my readers having any Vietnam flashbacks, so I’ll move onto a new character: the villain. Now I know you might be thinking I’m spoiling it by revealing the identity of the baddie, but seriously it’s so obvious from the moment you meet him that I’m not going to insult people’s intelligence by not disclosing it.

Yeah it’s Dr McSmarm from Grey’s Anatomy. Megan Fox version 2 works for him in some capacity that is unknown. Something to do with cars or something. Who cares. Anyway he’s a hottie, so of course Sam is jealous of him as he’s starting to move in on his easily impressed arm trophy. Sounds boring doesn’t it, well that’s because it is. At their first meeting there’s a lot of pervy camera shots of Megan Fox version 2 while Sam and Dr McKnuckballs exchange pleasantries.

John Turturro is back in this one yet again. After enjoying his time in Sector 7 in the first movie and being a ‘swine flu’ butcher in the second, now he’s a writer, selling his ‘They’re here!’ literature across the land. We see him first off doing an interview with Bill O’Reilly who makes him out to be a crazy person for believing in Transformers.

This got me thinking though. How in the name of God have the previous two movies been covered up? Take the first movie: they have an epic battle in the centre of a big city. They blow up everything in sight, thousands of humans see it all happen, but still they cover it up! In the second movie it’s even worse! There’s a series of battles, take for example the massive battle at the start in Singapore, a pyramid turns into a doomsday device, and The Fallen literally goes onto TVs across the land and tells all humans that he’s going to kill them all and such. Yep, all of that is covered up. All of it. How?!

Anyway, it’s in this scene with Turturro and O'Reilly where we meet a new character called Dutch, a former military man who now ponces around with John Turturro. Now, Dutch is gay. I just thought I’d tell you that. Michael Bay is obviously still living in 1950s America when it comes to homosexuality as he uses every stereotype available to him in the depiction of this gay character.

The very first time we see Dutch walk into shot he is wearing a suit with flowers on it. FLOWERS! Even the campest man in the universe doesn’t wear flowers on his suit! I mean, come on Michael, have you ever even met a gay man in your life? Most of the gay men I know are just normal and act as any other straight man would. According to Mr Bay they’re hip swaying, happy campers who wear flowery suits and talk like Julian Clary. There’s even one scene where he mentions that he has a girlfriend and when they question him on her name he says “Ind-ia.” Apparently that’s funny. Some people in my cinema screen actually laughed at that. It’s pretty soul destroying really.

Deep what?

Another character the audience found hilarious was a character who calls himself ‘Deep Wang’. I am totally not kidding there, that’s his actual name that he shouts out all the time. Michael uses a good old fashioned gay joke with him and Sam too. Sam works at the same place Deep Wang does and gets cornered by him in a toilet cubicle where they proceed to struggle all the while John Malkovich is stood right outside watching with disgust. Amusing huh. Deep Wang is also of Asian descent so of course naturally he drinks ‘exotic milk’ and is all round a bit kooky. I think this particular character is the worst in the movie; put me off the Hangover 2 single-handedly; you will be thanking your lucky stars when he’s killed off.

Deep Wang is murdered by a new Decepticon (thank God I’m talking about Transformers) who can transform into pretty much anything. Its true form is that of a Pterodactyl that has been sent out by Megatron to kill the people involved with the mission to the moon all those years ago. Deep Wang is one of them. Yes, because NASA usually encodes names like that, apparently Juno was going to be called Schlong but they changed it at the last minute. Anyway the Pterodactyl sneaks into Deep Wang’s office all stealthily and kills him making it look like suicide. Luckily though Deep Wang has given Sam the secret plans (which of course he kept in his underpants and rubs all over Sam’s face because I guess that’s funny).

Anyway, once Deep Wang is dead the Pterodactyl can stealthily leave, making everyone think it was a crazy suicide! Wrong. Instead, for no apparent reason it decides to go berserk and shoots at anyone and anything in the building before it buggers off. So why then did it bother to be all stealthy in the killing of Deep Wang? I really don’t get that at all. Michael Bay just thought to himself “I haven’t seen anything blow up in a while… pterodactyl attack!”

There are other new transformers too of course and naturally some swift exits for former ‘formers. Skids and Mudflap have not returned, thank Christ! They were the new additions to the second movie. All they did was wax lyrical at each other in the most stereotypically black way possible. You’d have to be a retard to find them funny, I was personally stunned they made it past the censors. It appears their racism was too much for Michael Bay to include in the new one; didn’t stop him abusing the Asians though.

Replacing Skids and Mudflap is another little bot who hangs out with Joe Pesci-bot. These little robots are supposed to supply some comic relief throughout the movie but they don’t really succeed. To be fair they provided the only laugh of the movie for me, when they were getting crowded out by several enemies, the new bot addition turns to camera and says “this is a cluster-“ and then the scene cuts before his ultimate F-word. Not exactly laugh out loud humour but funny non-the-less.

Live long and prosper.

The major new addition is Sentinel Prime. He’s the Autobot whose ship crash landed on the moon and started all of this mess. He’s played by poor Leonard Nimoy who of course can only really get voice rolls these days as he is, and always will be, Spock. Speaking of which Michael Bay makes him humiliate himself in this movie by demanding he say the Star Trek line: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Clearly it’s not just John Malkovich who’s fallen on hard times.

Sentinel Prime is a strange character. Once reactivated he supports the Autobots and the humans in their escapades against the Decepticons; but after a while it turns out he made a deal with the Decepticons and sides with them so that Cybertron can survive. Their aim is to rebuild Cybertron by activating a gate using rods that were also found in the spacecraft on the moon. I liked it in the movie where it gets revealed that their aim is to literally bring Cybertron to Earth. I think this is supposed to be a twist but I figured it out straight away! Breathe Andy Breathe you’re not the target audience, stay calm....

The thing is, I don’t understand why he disguises himself as a good guy for a while. He only really does it so it can be a twist. A big pointless twist. That kills Ironhide no-less! Ironhide, one of the best Autobots, killed needlessly because Sentinel decides to be a nobber. Not that dying in Transformers actually means anything. Take Jazz for example, killed in the first one, Optimus even does a moving speech for him at the end; but hey in the second movie he’s back, at least I think he is, they didn’t exactly get a lot of screen time. Did Michael Bay forget what he actually did in the first movie?

Remember the second movie where Optimus is killed by Megatron only to return to life after Sam himself dies but it brought back to life by the guardians of Robot Heaven. Man that sounds ridiculous. He went to Robot Heaven and they send him back because it is ‘his destiny’. Yet another annoying cliche. Robot Heaven really was the pinnacle of the trough, if there is such a thing!

I’ve just thought, in the second movie, The Fallen, that lame main antagonist, says to Megatron “only a Prime can kill a Prime.” He’s clearly chatting complete arse here as Megatron kills Optimus Prime in that forest while he’s protecting Sam. So does that mean Megatron is a Prime? Nope apparently he is not and this is just another gaping plot hole in the Transformers series.

Another new addition, this time with the Decepticon clan, is Shockwave, who we see early on and then again later in the movie. If you’ve seen the trailer you’ll recognise him, he’s the one with the snake like weapon that slaloms and weaves around buildings causing devastation in its wake. Shockwave is a cool new villain who unfortunately doesn’t get to do a lot. He makes a brief appearance early on so Optimus can say “that was Shockwave” and then emerges towards the end when Sam and his military pals from the other movies are climbing a skyscraper.

This skyscraper scene just bemuses me. I don’t get the point in it at all. Sam and his mates are climbing it so they can shoot a rocket at the rod that opens the gateway. On the way up Shockwave uses his worm to crush the building like a python. It collapses from the middle and topples over at a 90 degree angle meaning they all slip, slide and fall about for a while. Do they shoot the rocket? No. Do any of them die? No. Do they converse? No. SO WHAT WAS THE POINT!? This scene lasts a good 15-20 minutes and it offers NOTHING! It’s as if Michael Bay watched Inception and thought he would like to also include a cool scene like the zero-gravity scenes.

Transformers 3 is 2 hours and 40 minutes long! That’s a long time! So why is this pointless scene included? In fact why did the whole first hour make the final cut? This movie could easily be cut down to a one and a half hour movie. Instead it’s dragged out. I think that adds to the feeling of boredom.

A story that was written on a beer mat.

As you may have noticed, the story in this movie is pretty horrific and is told just as poorly. Like I’ve said this movie is about the humans, and not the transformers, hence why the first hour is wasted with the moanful Sam, his parents, new girlfriend, John Malkovic and Dr McDonald.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon is the exact same move as the previous two. The story is simple: the Decepticons want to take over the world and the Autobots (and the humans) must fight to stop them from achieving their goal. On this occasion Megatron looks to be defeated early on, brooding with the lovable Starscream in the middle of a desert getting kicks by scaring the local wildlife. But he isn’t beaten just yet as he’s made that deal with Sentinel when the Autobots seemed to be defeated that will ensure that Cybertron will live on. Sentinel, posing as a good guy heads towards the Earth with some rods that will open a gate. However he crashes on the moon and so fails in his mission. Not to worry, the Decepticons take all the rods apart from a few and leave the humans and therefore the Autobots to find Sentinel and reactivate him. Only Optimus can do that apparently. I suppose that rule was made up by the same people who said only a Prime can kill a Prime.

Wondering what the Autobots were up to before all of this kicked off? Well they were out fighting the ‘human’s wars’ I’m sorry? You’re choosing sides now? Yep, the Autobots became America’s bitch. It shows them out in the Middle East fighting a load a stereotypical terrorists because the Middle Eastern nations are all evil right? Why couldn’t they go and free Libya? Bumblebee is with them, Sam's always having a moan at him for not 'hanging out' the selfish little sod!

Anyway, as I’ve said Sentinel betrays the Autobots and all appears lost. The Decepticons send the humans an ultimatum: to extradite the Autobots. Yes, the Decepticons tell the humans to send away the Autobots, their only means of defence in return for their safety and freedom. So what do they do? They comply! I’m serious, the US government actually tell the Autobots to leave, and Michael Bay does it in what can only be the worst way I’ve ever seen in cinema.

The Autobots will be blasted back into space by a giant space rocket and they are marched down the runway and into the ship, but not before Optimus does another “never lose faith in yourselves” speech. Once loaded in they’re sent off into space when all of a sudden, surprise surprise, a Decepticon appears from nowhere and blows up the rocket! It explodes in more-or-less the same explosion pattern as the Challenger did back in 1986. Why? Why evoke images of the Challenger disaster for no good reason? It’s one of the worst moments in this movie and that is saying a lot!

With the Autobots out of the picture the Decepticons are free to invade the planet, enslave the human race, and generally blow stuff up. Who’d have thought the DECEPTicons would DECIEVE the humans? Mind blowing stuff isn’t it?

So it seems like it’s down to the humans to stop the Decepticons from world domination. They fail pretty much instantly and Dr McGonagall takes Megan Fox version 2 with him to his new lair. It’s here where they reveal that the Decepticons want to use the humans as a slave force to rebuild their new Cybertron. I don’t really know why as I’d imagine they’d be fairly useless, doing about as much work in a day as a Decepticon could do in 17 seconds, but hey the movie’s not been making sense for hours so why start now?

Sam decides that he’s going to rise up and go into the Decepticons make-shift base and stop them from activating the gate. Well not really, he goes to save his girlfriend. On the way there he meets up with the bloke from The Fast and the Furious who’s working as a farmer or something. Obviously he joins Sam on his quest along with some other random military types who crop up from nowhere. Once they reach the city walls they discover that the city is in ruin and Sam’s mates decide to pussy out. I’m not exactly sure what they were expecting really, but apparently the ruins are enough to scare them off. Sam gets them onside once more and then just as they start to get attacked by the evil Decepticons… the Autobots appear to save the day! How? Who cares! They’re back and they kick some ass!

The following scenes are all about getting to the gate and stopping Cybertron from being pulled to Earth. It involves some of the most stupid scenes ever seen (or not seen) in Transformers history. First off before they commence battle, the professor Autobot, who is new to this movie gives Sam a couple of weapons, essentially grappling hooks (THIS IS IMPORTANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE), and then they all head off to do battle. In his truck guise, Optimus and some other Autobots are heading towards the gate when they’re ambushed by the Decepticons! Optimus loses his cargo which has the flight deck inside, he needs to get to it. I’m sure there’s going to be lots of big action scenes showing him get it back, I can’t wait!

Of course you’ll have to wait for that as we get more boring human scenes. I don’t know how but some random American troops and marines appear from nowhere to aid our heroes. I racked my brain for hours afterwards trying to figure out where they came from. Let’s just say they were dropped in by some aircraft that somehow managed to avoid getting shot down by the hundreds of airborne Deceptions. Now, it’s no secret Michael Bay loves the US military. Remember that scene from the second movie where there was a giant American flag dwarfing the Union Jack? Ah such sweet memories. Michael Bay thinks about the US military EVERY time he makes love. EVERY SINGLE TIME. He just cannot get enough of them, even though they do sod all but shoot in random directions throughout each and every movie!

The next scene is Optimus Prime flying through the air, wait a minute, he was going to get the flight deck…now he’s using the flight deck…you missed out the entire scene of him kicking ass while you showed the boring humans!? By this point though I was too distressed to even get angry about it, I just prayed it would end soon. It appears Optimus only flies for the simple plot device of him getting stuck in some random cables like a pathetic fly caught in a spider’s web. The other Autobots go to help him down and while they do that Shockwave can terrorise Sam in the pointless 20 minute skyscraper scene. Sigh.

After a few more pointless scenes Sam ends up being chased by Starscream, who’s having such a laugh toying with his prey. At this point I was fully on Starscream’s side and wanted him to crush the idiot as quickly as possible. Doesn’t happen though because Sam whips out the grapple hook that was conveniently given to him (nudge nudge) and shoots him perfectly in the eye. No training, no practice shots, he just hits bullseye in his first shot from about 40 yards. Sure, why not?

This kicks off the ridiculous scene in which Starscream flails around in his slapstick way, swinging Sam here, there and everywhere. The army bloke from the first movie, Lennox, who looked to have a promising story but then became a tertiary character who just says army stuff and shoots zappy guns at the baddies comes to help Sam. Well I say help, he holds on too and after a while Sam stabs Starscream in the eye with the other weapon killing the lumbering Decepticon…

WHAT THE HELL!? Sam kills Starscream?? How can this be? Starscream CAN NOT die at the hands of a human, or anyone for that matter! Nobody but Megatron! If Starscream is to die, then only Megatron can do it! That’s just the law! Why Mickey Bay, why!?

Not that Megatron could kill Starscream though, he’s pathetic and has been since the beginning of the second movie. I don’t know what happened, but Megatron went from being the biggest bad-ass in the universe in the first movie, to being possibly the lamest character ever by the end of the third.

In the second movie, he plays The Fallen’s lapdog and I still don’t know why. The Fallen was an old man! He sucked! Megatron should’ve just killed him and taken centre-stage once more! Instead he got to chase Sam around and wipe The Fallen’s arse from scene to scene. Grow some robo-balls Megatron!

In this third movie, he’s a little bashed up from the previous two flicks and so sends that pterodactyl to do most of his dirty work. Of course he’s sided with Sentinel who is also tougher than him. This is not how it should be! Megatron should be the main villain, nobody else! There’s even a scene where he gets told this by Megan Fox version 2. Towards the end when Sentinel is reeling in Cybertron, Megatron sits pathetically in some alleyway. Megan Fox version 2 walks up to him and starts abusing him, telling him he’s just Sentinel’s bitch. Of course it’s all a ploy so that he’ll attack Sentinel and take the spoils for himself, but why the hell does he just take that from her? Why doesn’t he just kill her on sight? The Megatron I know and love would have killed her immediately, grabbed her, crushed her, squished her, pulverised her. Sigh.

So Megatron gets up and starts beating on Sentinel, Optimus kills Sentinel. Then it’s just the two of them: Optimus Prime vs. Megatron! Finally I had sat through 2 hours and 30 minutes and something epic was going to happen! Optimus kills him instantly, with one arm, like he’s just an insect. Oh God.

Editing that’s almost as poor as mine.

Michael Bay just cannot make a coherent movie! He’s just dire! One thing that you will notice not just in this movie, but in all of the Transformers movies is the lack of any editing talent. Editing is such an art, it’s something all filmmakers learn at some point but clearly Michael bay skipped that class. Okay, he was unlikely to be responsible for it, but still if you’re director then it’s your responsibility!

Take the scene after Starscream dies. Sam and Lennox are tossed into the air and are certain to fall to their deaths! But no, Bumblebee arrives and catches them (seriously how many times do Transformers have to catch humans in these movies?) saving their lives. The VERY NEXT scene is a hostage scene where some Decepticons have captured some of the Autobots. Now, when I first saw this I was trying to figure out which Transformer was which, as you do throughout most of these movies, and there was a big bright yellow one. Who’s the yellow one? Bumblebee. But it can’t be him as he literally just saved Sam and Lennox moments ago. So it must be a new Autobot that we haven’t met yet, right? Right?

The Decepticons decide it’s time for the Autobots to die now and take the Professor and shoot him in cold blood (or motor oil) confirming his only role in the movie to give Sam those weapons. Who’s up next? The yellow one. IT IS BUMBLEBEE! But how? This makes no sense!!! Why Mickey Bay, why!? You don’t even put a scene in-between, you just straight up have Bumblebee be in two places at once!

It’s this all round poor movie-making that makes Transformers 3 an awful watch! No story, poor characters, awful humour, dire writing, shoddy editing, and a misleading title! Okay it’s not as bad as the second movie, there’s no Skids and Mudflap, there’s no Robot Heaven, there’s no human transformer, there’s no Megan Fox, there are no giant swinging metallic balls of steel, but this movie is terrible. It’s not as painful as Revenge of the Fallen, it’s more boring than anything else. Everything’s been seen before, there is too much emphasis on the human characters when the movie would be far more interesting if they allowed the transformers to show their characters off.

I feel like I should at least try to think of something good about these movies. The only thing I can think of is that the first movie is a decent watch; the other two are write-offs. The action scenes involving the Transformers are genuinely good, fantastic infact, but not enough to save the movies. I sometimes think Michael Bay is just in the wrong job. He's brilliant at special effects but when it comes to directing he just isn't up to it. Another good thing about the movies are the soundtracks, especially the first. Steve Jablonsky does a great job and it's well worth a listen.

But unfortunately these good points are far outweighed by the bad points. I can sum up this movie simply by saying this personal statistic of mine. There are three movies that have made me seriously consider walking out of. Two of them are Transformers movies. The first is Transformers 2; during the parents visiting college and the cannabis brownies. If it went on for one second more I would have been out the door and I would never of even witnessed the robot bollocks! Transformers 3 is the latest addition to my ‘almost walk-out’ list; and it only really happened towards the end during the hostage scene I mentioned earlier.

In the scene the Professor is sent to Silicon Heaven and Bumblebee is next. He stands there about to be executed and looks at the crying Sam while some emotional music plays in the background. As soon as I saw this I knew I would walk out if they killed Bumblebee. 100% certain. Bumblebee is the one character you cannot kill in Transformers for me. Optimus can perish for all I care; Bumblebee is the best Transformer. I thought Michael Bay would go through with it, it’s the last movie so why not kill him off? But thankfully he saw sense and Bumblebee was saved by Joe Pesci-bot and his mate who’ve commandeered an enemy mothership. The mothership crashes into a river. Did they survive? We’ll never know.

So there you have it, one of the worst movies ever made, summed up in 5752 words. I could have gone on for much longer, but if I posted anymore it’d break the internet. Looking back at it, I’m surprised I didn’t walk out of Transformers 2 or 3. They really did push me to the limit. Are either of them the worst movie I’ve ever seen? No. That accolade belongs to the other movie in my ‘almost walk-out’ list. Will Ferrall's The Land of the Lost. The only reason I didn’t walk out on that was that I’d fall 40,000 feet to my death if I did.

Final Verdicts:

Transformers. 3 Stars. Not exactly the deepest of movies but pushes the four star barrier as it’s enjoyable.

Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen. 1 Star. Dire, makes me want to stick pins in eyeballs.

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. 2 Stars. Only just gets 2 stars as it’s an improvement on the second, but largely boring and hardly any focus on the giant robotic aliens.