Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Having exhausted the more terrestrial locations for the secret, all-powerful, gadget over which the "Autobots" and "Decepticons" will squabble relentlessly, this time we move to a lunar environment where there is supposed to be a long-buried "Cybertron" ship that could just tip the balance of power should it fall into the wrong hands. To be fair to this iteration, the tiniest bit of effort has been spent on a plot this time. We create a good, old-fashioned, cold war style scenario with the Russians and the Americans, and there is also a little bit of Apollo 11 conspiracy to liven it up as just about everyone battles it out for the technology buried amidst the barren landscape. We've also got a new baddie-in-chief in the form of "Shockwave" and he continues to make sure that "Sam" (Shia LaBeouf) still cannot shake off his legacy with the robots still bent on mutual destruction. The usual stalwarts make up the numbers. The John Turturro "Simmons" character is starting to wain a bit now, Josh Duhamel is starting to lose some of his glitter and though mercifully we are now shot of Megan Fox, we find she is substituted by an even less charismatic Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley as 'Carly". Plenty of action and pyrotechnics, same old, same old... I expect there will be another one along soon.

'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' is an absolute drag. The ending felt like it took hours to complete, then to make it worse (what am I chatting, more like better) it just ends on a dime without any true reaction to the mass brawl that had ensued. Bit abrupt, I thought.
A lot of what I can say about this could be taken from my review of the preceding 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen', just a little bit more definitive and debilitating. I'm all for full action only, I literally love 'Fast & Furious', but even I need some characters to connect with so I can forge a desire to watch 'em - no-one here gives me that.
The cast, if only on paper, is more interesting to look at, mind you. I wasn't expecting to see John Malkovich and Frances McDormand appear, the former's part fits fairly well in fairness but the latter is incredibly wasted with a rubbish character. Tyrese Gibson (eventually) features more, something I did actually wish for in the 2009 predecessor.
Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has a slightly better character to portray, at least when compared to what Megan Fox had to work with. Elsewhere, Ken Jeong is genuinely good in this - in fact, I'd say he is responsible for any pleasant reactions that I got during this movie, funny guy.
I just caught a glimpse of the box office takings... $1.124 billion?! Bloody hell. I'm now curious to see if that translated into a positive reception from websites like this. (edit: not really, but it evidently won over the average moviegoer though, so fair enough).
If only you could see my face when I realised that the next installment goes on for even closer to three (!) hours. I best load up on the snacks! Hey, who knows, maybe 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' is the 'Fast Five' of this franchise? *nervous chuckle*