Movie Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Dare I say, Dark of the Moon was a significant improvement from the hot mess that was Revenge of the Fallen. Hard to compare this against the innocence of the first film, but this was pretty much at the same level in terms of story, characters and visuals. Of course, that's not saying much, but I digress.

On a visual standpoint, this was bound to be highly extravagant. As expected, the visual effects were spectacular and seamless, the mix of physical staging and live action stunt work were remarkable and the shot composition was excellent. The action scenes were outstanding and at times, pretty epic. Needless to say, this was THE highlight of the film.

But that's not to say that Dark of the Moon was another dumbed down to a switch-off-your-brain type of film. Ok, at some point it went there, but this movie had a relatively stronger plot and a slightly well-developed characters compared to it's predecessors. Besides, the movie was never marketed as a "story" kind of film in the first place, so obviously the story was just there to support - yes, that's right - the action and special effects.

Seriously. Who goes into a Transformers film expecting something meaningful or a thought provoking action drama? For what it was worth, the story here was satisfying enough and not as badly written as the last film.

As for the actors, I have no complaints whatsoever. I thought Shia LeBeouf stepped up his performance on this one. He managed to showcase a couple more range to his acting abilities and his comic timing, as usual, was pretty impressive. Josh Duhamel was pretty decent and so was Tyrese. John Malkovich gave a pretty one dimensional performance, but that was more on the material than his actual talent. Patrcik Dempsey was possibly the weakest as his character wasn't particularly interesting. Heck, the movie could've survived without his character.

Now, replacing Megan Fox with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wasn't much of a big difference, but she was actually surprisingly decent for a new comer. In that regard, she's so much better - and more gorgeous! - than Fox. Just saying.

One minor quibble though about the film was the shifting of scenes. I wasn't sure if it was a conscious decision, but the way they edited the abrupt jump from serious scenes to something that's supposed to be funny made the film look awkward. The pacing was a little uneven too. Some action scenes were just too long for comfort that it began to lose impact after a while. I don't know. Maybe that's just me.

Again, this was indeed an improvement from the last film. Sure, this one still relied on heavy-handed, mind-numbing explosion extravaganza, but movies should be judged primarily on how well they can hold up to the promise of what they try to be and Transformers 3 succeeded on that account. Good job on concluding your series Michael Bay.

RATING: 7/10