Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Review

The ongoing Transformers marathon continues with the third entry, Dark of the Moon. I have to say right off the bat that I like the whole NASA angle. As it starts off with a clever tie in with the Apollo 11 space mission, I was right away invested and to be honest, I think that this story could have been a clever way to introduce the franchise. Sure, the Archibald Witwicky story is cool and all, but the space race could have been a cool origin story if the script was tweaked a bit. Plus, with this tie in with the space race, the Archibald Witwicky story could have also been used as a sequel idea and it would not have messed with the continuity of the franchise. Forget the Transformers in ancient Egypt and them just hiding on earth forever as Blackbirds and old airplanes and stuff, forget the dinosaur crap and although I haven't seen it, knights and Nazis? Are you kidding me? Pick an origin story that you can contain and then expand from there. Plus, you get to see Buzz Aldrin! Is that not sweet or what?! Speaking of men in space, Leonard Nimoy is a great addition to the cast and if you notice, there are quite a few Star Trek references in this movie too. Just a nice little bonus. Speaking of actors from different franchises showing up, this movie is loaded with famous actors. Most of them are nice additions like Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Alan Tudyk and the return of John Tuturro, but can someone tell me why Ken Jeong is in this movie and why is he acting like his character from the Hangover? Like, why Michael Bay? Speaking of new additions to the cast, Rosie Huntington-Wheatley is just sex object 2.0 with no character whatsoever. At least Megan Fox had the slightest bit of character to her. As for Sam Witwicky, you could kind of tell that this film was being made at the time in Shia Labeouf's life where he started to go a little crazy because his performance was all over the place. For the first half of the film, it seemed like he was just phoning in his performance but near the end, he gets pretty intense and emotional and to be honest, with a cleaner plot, those scenes could have had some raw emotion attached to them and could have been very dramatic. When I say "cleaner", I mean the plot doesn't have any Michael Bay-isms in it and felt like two different movies. Transformers going to the moon on one side and Sam and his new girlfriend and her new boss creating conflict on the other. I think if they stuck with the space race stuff and focused on that, this could have been a cool movie. However, no Transformers film is complete with a long drawn out ending and holy crap do we get one here. Chicago gets ripped to shreds and the destruction is at an all time high in this film. Now I will admit that some parts of the third act were fairly exciting, like the soldiers in their flying suits or when Trump tower was falling over, but this ending takes forever. Should have trimmed it down a little bit. All in all, there is potential here. If this wasn't a sequel and there was a different director attached, this could have worked. As it is right now, it's mindless entertainment, which I'll admit, I like from time to time.

PS - Why do the Transformers have blood?