The early reviews are in, so far it's three fresh and one rotten for Transformers 3. Most of the critics believe the special effects are well worth the 3D dollars, and the plot is much more coherent this time around. While on the negative side the movie appears to suffer from more cheesy humor and characters that over stay their welcome.
THE FRESH
Time will tell whether Transformers: Dark of the Moon really is the final Transformers film for both director Michael Bay and star Shia LaBeouf, but it's certainly the best one in this hugely successful, but widely loathed franchise. It's devoid of Decepticon testicles, Autobot heaven, offensive robots -- and Megan Fox.
by Jim Vejvoda, IGN
With director Michael Bay's unsubtle stamp splattered all over it, teenage boys and their elder brothers will be in techno heaven, although you need vertigo drops for the hand-held camera work and a degree in transformology to keep track of the detail of the highly complex plot. The dialogue is sometimes hard to understand too.
by Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile
Transformers 3 (full title - Transformers: Dark Of The Moon) might struggle to equal the sheer exhilaration of Bay's 2007 trilogy-starter, but it’s a whole lot more coherent and fulfilling than Revenge Of The Fallen.
Yes, it’s punishingly long – the longest so far, in fact – and comes saddled with some excruciating attempts at comedy (the most painful involving The Hangover’s Ken Jeong as a LaBeouf-accosting conspiracy theorist)
by Neil Smith, Total Film
THE ROTTEN
In other words, Bay has delivered another empty spectacle that is overlong and mostly tedious. For a film centred on action set pieces it contains a lot of dull exposition and the humour is either cheesy or very simple innuendo, based around the fact that Sam’s new girlfriend Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) is attractive in the most conventional sense. And we’re not talking fun, cheeky ‘Nice beaver’ à la The Naked Gun innuendo here either, we’re talking about stuff that Benny Hill would have dismissed as banal. The performances are yet again on the same level as pantomime theatre with lots of shouting, Gilmore Girls-style rapid dialogue and characters making ‘amusing’ asides to themselves.
by Thomas Caldwell, Cinema Autopsy