Review: TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (3)

From the sublime to the ridiculous, and back and forth, that’s pretty much the story of TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON.  The movie has a surprisingly good cast, which helps raise the level of the writing.  Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Michael Bay, it is a failry engrossing close to three hours, although the final battle seems interminable.  Course, I guess it takes time to save the world. Once again, it’s sometimes diffiucult to tell the good bots from the bad, but up close the bad ones are darker colors and have evil faces.  Shia Le Beouf remains one of the worst actors in Hollywood, but he must be in good shape to do all the running he does in the movie.  Megan Fox opted out of this one, which is fine with me, and another collagen lipped girl friend replaces her – British model/actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, who is not only better looking, but also a better actress than Fox.  Unfortunately, she stands a head taller than the tiny La Beouf, which makes their romantic scenes a bit silly.  Maybe number 4 will be about her – I’d go in a heartbeat.  John Turturro is fine as a friendly scientist, and Frances McDormand plays the head of the national space agency, while John Malkovich plays another of his delightfully wacko chracxters.  Once again the evil transformers are trying to take over the earth, and the good ones are helping the humans save the planet.  I just heard yesterday that Bay wrecked 389 cars in the making of this movie.  They’re wrecked to good use.  Several scenes are set in Milwaukee’s Calatrava Center, and Chicago also gets a lot of use and is left in ruins.  There are some truly preposterous events in the film, but, the old willing suspension of disbelief is required.  The digital sepcial effects, by-and-large, are fantastic and quite realistic.  The sound vibrates the whole auditorium.  If you decide to see it, see it in 3D;  it’sworth it.  I found it pretty good escapism and give it a socks up 6.8.  One other odd thing, I thought, was in the beginning  when they intersperse film clips of Presidents Kennedy and Nixon with actors who don’t look anything like them.