The Autobots Bumblebee, Ratchet, Ironhide and Sideswipe led by Optimus Prime, are back in action, taking on the evil Decepticons in the third Transformers... in 3D.
The two enemies become involved in a perilous space race between the US and Russia, and once again human Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has a part to play. The last 45 minutes is director Michael Bay's piece de resistance: a massive action set-piece in which the Decepticons attempt to destroy Chicago.
New characters include the villainous Shockwave, a longtime Transformers character who rules Cybertron while the Autobots and Decepticons battle it out on Earth.
You’ll hear many people say they don’t watch action films for the story. That’s never been truer than in the case of the third and final (not likely, let’s face it) instalment of the Transformers series. Convinced that audiences want more than two and a half hours of robots-changing-into-vehicles-and-fighting-each-other, the filmmakers attempt to shoehorn in some vague semblance of a storyline with the intention of creating a well-rounded experience.
Well, Michael Bay and his team needn’t have bothered. Nobody cares anymore about what Shia LaBeouf and his excessively plastic girlfriend are up to, and sitting through shabbily edited montages of job interviews, for example, feels like we’re wasting time. Despite small appearances from good actors (John Turturro, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Ken Jeong), the human-heavy exposition part of the movie (the whole first half, essentially) might put you to sleep.
So set your alarm and wake up with about an hour to go. This is the part you really want to see. The lengthy last section feels like it just keeps going and going; the action becoming more elaborate and eye-popping, always outdoing itself. The spectacle is insane and the work done by the visual effects team is staggering. IMAX 3D is worth every penny if you’re in Auckland; anywhere else and you’ll still want to see this on the biggest screen you can.
The movie is a huge improvement on Part II, which I reviewed as lazy. I felt satisfied after watching this trilogy-capper. Despite being bored stiff in the early stages, the sheer visual audacity of the climactic destruction really lifts the bar for 3D action.
By Andrew Hedley, Flicks.co.nz
Wow! I've seen every Michael Bay movie. From the fun of THE ROCK and ARMAGEDDON to the overreaching of PEARL HARBOUR and BAD BOYS 2... Hell, I even sat through the excretia that was TRANSFORMERS 2 - but this?? Just a huge headache - what a sorry mess. One star for the worst actress EVER on screen! She made Megan Fox look like Meryl Streep. Excellent 3D which amazes for all of 5 minutes before becoming tedious. My 5 year old LOVED it. Me? I was just dumbfounded that a movie could actually be worse than TRANSFORMERS 2!!!
not too impressed, fell asleep. lots of fighting, action and explosions....hard to tell who's winning tho..robots look similar when clashed together! Rosie is nearly as bad as Megan
The best way of describing this movie is like an X BOX game. Where you control the character and annying decide to waste time, where you should be going to the "drop off", or the next point in the game but instead you decide to waste several hours of your time "exploring" around town, where less exciting things are happening. Be prepared to not see much of the transformers, and question whether you entered the right movie theatre in points. Included in this movie is the struggle of Shia's character to find work, and EVERY character reacting to the fact that he lucked out with his new and improved girlfriend. cool for five minutes, NOT for 1 & 1/2 hours. Don't get me wrong she was hot as hell right? But I would've preferred to have seen her character with more of a storyline. Get her in the action, get her running for her life without the need for Shia, get her forming relationships with the transformers, give her more than just eye candy as a reason for being in the movie!!! Also, in the main battle scene when Optimus finally appears (SPOILER ALERT) he conveniently gets his wings caught in a wire and again we don't see him for another 45 minutes. Bumble bee is nowhere to be seen for most of the movie, leaving Shia transformerless for the most of the plot. The way Megatron dies, indicates to me that they forgot about him, and in a rush to wrap the movie up in the last 15 minutes they kill him off in a way that insults the rank and the very essence of his character. Shia gets a job and everybody's happy. If I was Megan Fox, I would be feeling so good right now, it seemed the movie was made with more focus on petty references to her character than it was about actual transformers. Don't get me wrong, the action scenes were intense and well thought out. They were just few and far between. I expect Megan to now be a lead in a new action movie within the next year - if she plays her cards right. Though with the upcome-ance of intellectual hotties like Olivia Wilde, Megan better move fast before naive/borderline stupid hotties are redrafted completely.
This was a great movie to watch in 3d. But the only part I like was the first half hour of the movie and the end of it. I think it was a good ending to a series that the t3 and t2 were not that good. But my fav in t1
The 3D was amazing but that was all it really had going for it. The story was disjointed and had so many plot holes that it was just silly. It was about 40 minutes too long and seriously, the Victoria secret model was just ridiculous!
A visually ugly film with an incoherent plot, wooden characters and inane dialog. It provided me with one of the more unpleasant experiences I've had at the movies.
I think it's accepted wisdom now that the first of the Transformers films was a surprise
An improvement on Transformers 2, but then what isn't? To paraphrase the Bard, it's a tale, full of sound and fury and extremely stupid dialogue and nonsensical plotting and preposterous stunts and robots punching each other's heads off, signifying nothing.
The millions of man hours put into producing this techno shock and awe must be staggering. Everyone got his job done, but somewhere along the way, the movie got lost.
Nothing you see makes any sense at all, but the sensations are undeniable, and kind of fun in their vertiginous, supercaffeinated way.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Wednesday, 29th Jun 2011.
Release date: June 29th 2011.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
