Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

We get treated to a pretty cool prologue scene of Cybertron in war, and a ship escaping from that planet, carrying technology that could decide the outcome of the war, but not before taking major damage. The Ark, as it is called, crashed onto our moon, and basically sparked the entire moonlanding race of the 60s.

[Oooo, history!]

Fastforward to the present, everyone who's anyone discovers the Ark, and inside, the previous Autobot leader Sentinel Prime, who is brought to Earth and revived by Optimus using the Matrix of Leadership from the last movie. The good guys also discover the Pillars, an invention by Sentinel that, when placed in strategic locations on Earth, would create a space bridge large enough for teleportation.

What exactly, those of you who have not seen Transformers 3 yet, may ask?

Cybertron itself.

When that little bit comes to light, all hell breaks loose, and that is when the fun proper totally begins.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is definitely darker than its predecessors, and despite 10 minutes of Ken Jeong, the storyline is definitely better and much more interesting than the earlier movies. It's more expansive, in that the Decepticons pretty much take over downtown Chicago the world (humans get obliterated this time!), and it also touches on an aspect of the human-robot relationship that hasn't been explored before: humans colluding with Decepticons, which apparently goes back waaay before the Autobots made an appearance.

I don't think I need to go into detail on the robots, they look awesome as usual, though I still can't really tell one Decepticon from the other (except for Megatron, since he's taken on that whole nomad look). That one scene in the second half of the movie where our human heroes are in the building (it looks ridiculous in the trailer, but it's explained), and Shockwave is just destroying the crap out of it, is absolutely fantastic. But my favorite scene would have to be the part when Bumblebee transforms into robot-mode to defeat some Decepticons (with Sam still inside him, car-mode), and grabs Sam before turning back into a car, with Sam inside, all in slow-mo. Even without Sam screaming like a little girl, it's still an amazingly-enjoyable sequence.

T:DotM is bigger, more violent, with so much damage and robot-on-robot action, and we get to see what Cybertron looks like. It has a tone of epic finality, since all the major Decepticon players get wiped out. It should be awesome, but it doesn't really reach the mark.

Why?

With the exception of the first one, final fights in the Transformers movies have always been disappointingly short, but this one takes the cake. And the reason behind it is even more ridiculous.

During the final fight between Sentinel and Optimus, Megatron backstabs Sentinel, because Sam's new girlfriend, Carly, manages to convince Megatron that he wouldn't be the leader anymore if Sentinel wins the fight.

Yes, new girl Rosie Huntington-Whitely is the deus ex bloody machina.

With Sentinel badly injured (because he didn't count on Megatron was that big a moron) and out of the way, Optimus takes out Megatron, and subsequently ends Sentinel for his betrayal. All in all, final fight took roughly 10 minutes.

[It's a very convenient and quick ending, and affirms this article that Megatron is a bloody idiot that also takes the advice of humans he doesn't know.]

Huntington-Whitely was generally not awful until the end, when she starts staring above-camera with a look of wonderment for 10 whole minutes, and only in the next scene do we realise that she was looking at Megatron and processing her idea at the same time.

I wish Megan Fox was in this. If Mikaela was still around and had thought of something like this, we would have appreciated it even more, because she knows Megatron, and what he's like and stuff. Instead, we have the new girl doing this, and it's like, "What the eff, man?!"

Mikaela would've shown more expression on her face.

T:DotM is a worthy third movie, but would've been so, so much better if Megan Fox was still around.

[Plus, I kinda miss Ramon Rodriguez :)]