I guess they knew what they were doing, given the boxoffice. Maybe I'm not enough of a guy to gloss over the new girlfriend as pure meat (she makes Megan Fox look like she should have won an Academy Award) and the zero attempt to even make any marginal sense plot-wise. Tne fact that Shia drags her through the ENTIRE film including the destruction of Chicago with only a few blemishes on her white jacket and top was too much for me. It was easier for me to believe Denise Richards as a rocket scientist in GoldenEye. From that standpoint it's an extremely cynical movie - they know international gross is where it's at so why bother with a plot that will just confuse foreigners. Pirates of the Caribbean is Shakespeare compared to the Transformers franchise. Spielberg's touch is to make sure there are small goofy robots for the kids and, well, Shia Lebeouf. The guy is just putting in his name all over stuff these days. Ken Jeong has such a ridiculously unfunny, unnecessary cameo whose sole purpose is to lock in the Hangover crowd. In fact, this Transformers is at its best when all out stupidry is on display like with Malkovich and Turturro and best of all Alan Tudyk as Turturro's Dutch possibly gay, possibly former hitman/personal assistant.
All that grumpy stuff said I do believe Michael Bay is the best action director ever and I respect how hard he works at giving people the most for their money. On that count, TF3 delivers. It has some of the most impressive special effects I've ever seen and it never looks fake. The 3-D I can take or leave - with the exception of the opening Cybertron stuff which looked REALLLLLY GOOD 3-D wise (maybe Star Wars 3-D will kick azz after all?) - I think there were only a handful of scenes where the 3-D stood out.
For good or bad Transformers is a bloated, overhyped, misogynist (or any other 'ists' you can come up with), patriotic and catering to the absolute lowest common denominator: Michael Bay at his best
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