TRANSFORMERS 3: DARK OF THE MOON
3 out of 5 stars 

AUTOBOTS... ATTACK!!!

michael bay does it thrice... but this time, it’s BIGGER, LONGER, AND MOODIER. at a whopin’ 157 minutes, the autobots and shia laboeuf are baaaaaaaack... in 3D IMAX, thankyouverymuch... :P

so, the plot of this one ties in the moon landing with our favorite transformers, the autobots. sentinel prime (voiced by leonard nimoy) leaves the transformers’ home planet, cybertron, with the pillars (these portals that can open up wormholes) in a spaceship called “the ark”. the ark crash lands on the moon, and NASA decides to use the infamous neil armstrong moon landing as a coverup as a mission to figure out what the ark was carrying... fast-forward to present day, and autobots are now agents of the u.s. govt, fighting terror in the middle east as well as former USSR nations. while fighting off a decepticon in a nuclear winter in ukraine, optimus prime and his fellow autobots discover a piece of the ark. this prompts them to bring sentinel prime back to earth to revive him, but things don’t necessarily go as planned... hint: the autobots find themselves perhaps fighting a bigger enemy than megatron and his decepticon buddies. meanwhile, sam witwicky (shia laboeuf) is having trouble finding a job after graduating from college, although he’s dating quite a hottie named carly. (british model rosie huntington-whiteley) he’s restless and wants in on the action again after saving the world 2X, but settles for a mail clerk gig at some defense software company in d.c. well, until ken jeong decides to slip him some top secret NASA info. in the men’s bathroom. hehe... :P

the plot is actually pretty good in terms of the whole govt conspiracy angle, but why patrick dempsey as the human villain? WHY?! sooooooo ridic... there’s a lot of unnecessary drama i.e. shia crying and really awful human/robot interaction. (esp. towards the end) it’s also really sad to see john malkovich and john tuturro reduced down to such poor roles. tsk tsk... more of 2 star movie, but what makes it worthwhile is the 3D IMAX, of course. (hence the extra star) one can’t help but shout “FOR FREEEEEEDOM” in the theater when optimus prime saves the day... becuz nothing says “happy birthday, america!” like a red and blue alien robot ripping apart the enemy like a piece of meat... :P