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(Tedious, long sci-fi)
I suppose I should encourage people to see the third Transformer movie. It is about those action figures made by Hasbro, and Hasbro does contribute greatly to the Rhode Island economy. But over two and a half hours of metal figures clanging against each other in endless battles is just too much.
I'll bet you didn't know that President Kennedy sent Apollo II to the moon to find out why this giant spaceship from Cybertron crash landed on the dark side, and the Chernobyl disaster was caused by one of their destructive pillars.
That's the backstory for this tedious tale that has the good robots (Autobots) fighting the bad robots (Decepticons), destroying the city of Chicago while they clash in and over the streets.
Sam (Shia LaBeouf) is back. He was a hero in the last movie, but now finds himself jobless but with a wealthy, gorgeous girlfriend (Rosie Huntington-Whitely), who helps him find employment with a shady government contractor (John Malkovich).
Sam rides around in a yellow car that quickly transforms into Bumblebee, who has committed himself to helping the human race survive.
There are some interesting characters, including John Turturro, who tries to stir up the battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons, and Frances McDormand as a government agent trying to make sense out of all this nonsense. Patrick Dempsey even shows up in a supporting role. Unfortunately, so does Ken Jeong, who seems to only play out-of-control, obnoxious characters. All of these characters just fill in space between the endless battles. They get banged around beyond belief as the city is destroyed around them.
The special effects are good, but enough is enough. Just when you think the battle has been won, another hunk of metal appears.
I'm sure many of the series' fans left satisfied. I left with a headache.
Rated PG-13, with nonstop violence. But don't worry. The good guys don't even get a scratch on them.




