Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Making the mistake once more of assuming that anyone gives half a crap about the human cast, the franchise is back again to plunder our collective childhoods in the name of loud smashy action.

I have to grant them that the action is especially smashy. They seem to be getting the hang of whatever mystical piece of software generates the giant robots for the screen as many of the fight sequences are actually recognisable as fights and not just lots of metal spinning about the place. It's all very loud and pretty dynamic, three films on and I get the occasionally feeling that they may be onto something here, if only it wasn't made by and for morons.

Realistically, it's Transformers. It can only work in broad simplistic strokes; Good robots fight bad robots because good versus bad. I'm not expecting to be mentally engaged by it's devilish or subtle intricacies, I just wish they could do straightforward in a manner that bore thinking about for more than about five seconds, because sometimes the breaks between exploding giant machines is longer than that.

My instinct is to sit and list all the things that make absolutely no sense in hopes of expelling the bile I've worked up here, but it would really be quicker to list all of the things that actually made some. The criminally token presence of Megatron definitely deserves a mention, as does the hilarious replacement of the guys girlfriend, not that I would generally condone the presence of Megan Fox but I don't think I've ever seen a film that quite so candidly presented good old T and A. It dumps a thin backstory on us and hopes we don't care enough to worry further. Indeed, all over it hopes you approach it only partially concious, and maybe many will but personally I find it frustrating to find films that actively rely upon my passive acceptance of it's gibberish.

But it's biggest problem is really the same one the whole series carries: it relegates the Transformers to bit part players. The humans range from forgettable to cringeworthy yet all the while it has characters who are perhaps a little emotionally removed, but light up the goddamn screen. Somehow everything Optimus Prime says sounds awesome no matter how silly I'm sure it reads in the script. Just why on earth not fill a film with that?