I was not looking forward to seeing the latest film in Michael Bay’s “Transformers” film franchise. Even though I thought the first film was good at establishing its characters and bringing us exciting action sequences. However the next film, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”, was complete trash and I labeled it as the worst film of 2009, that’s why I was not looking forward to see this film. But I thought maybe, just maybe, that this film could execute something better then the last Transformers film and, to my surprise, it did. “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is better than “Revenge of the Fallen”, but that’s not really saying much because I still found this film to be just average.  The story isn’t interesting, the characters lack anything to care about and the action is minimally exciting.

The film begins in 1969 with the first landing on the Moon. However, as it turns out, that the first landing on the Moon was actually a mission to explore a crashed ship on the moon. This crashed ship was piloted by an autobot named Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy) and he is carrying something that could help the Autobots beat their rivals the Decepticons.

We then fast-forward to present day and we are introduced to the humans that get involved such as our returning hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf).  We are then introduced to his new hot and sexy girlfriend Carly who replaces Megan Fox and is played by Rosie Huntington-Whitely.  Other characters include Frances McDormand as a government official, John Malkovich as Sam’s boss, John Turturro also returns as Agent Simmons, Ken Jeong as a guy with some important info and Patrick Dempsey as Carly’s boss. Also returning are Josh Duhamel as the now experienced soldier and Tyrese Gibson as the now former soldier.  Then the story is how the Autobots and Decepticons battle each other, how Sam tries to save the world again, while at the same time people and robots are double-crossed,  and it will eventually lead an ultimate battle in Chicago.

This is a Michael Bay film and it follows the same technique we see in every Michael Bay film: All action and no interesting characters or story. All the characters lack any sort of edge for us to care. So in those pivotal action scenes in which the characters are in danger, do we really care? Plus those Autobots and Decepticons have no personality beyond their desire to kill one another. Plus some of them speak in such a monotonous tone that makes them even duller. So do we really care for them in those action scenes? I sure didn’t. Of course we are going those over the improbable sequences of action because this is a Michael Bay film. These sequences just consist of giant robots wrestling and then half of Chicago being destroyed in 45 min. rampage. However these scenes are not fun because they lack joy and excitement.  Even though the visuals look good, the action sequences are just loud and not fun.

I do think Shia LaBeouf can give a good performance when in the right role but all this role just consists of screaming his head off in various situations and is able to escape death like 50 times. If compare the performances between Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whitely then I am leaning towards Huntington-Whitely because I feel she is more natural at playing some hot girlfriend. However her only purpose in this film is to play a generic damsel in distress and to also somehow manage to remain pretty in explosions. The other characters such as McDormand and Dempsey are forgettable. Turturro seems to be the only memorable in the supporting category. Then there is Malkovich as Sam’s boss which I don’t think really belongs in the movie and could have come from a different film.

There is just no joy in “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”, this film is not fun. It is a loud, dumb and idiotic movie with an uninteresting story, dull characters, corny dialogue and the action sequences as a whole are not really exciting.  The visual may look good and there are moments of good humor but those moments are too infrequent. This picture may not be as bad as “Revenge of the Fallen” but Michael Bay’s latest Transformers film lacks any memorable substance or style.

**|PG-13|155 Minutes