Power failure

This Bumblebee’s honey tastes like gasoline.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon has the coolest premise and best visuals among the three franchise films. There were moments in this movie when I was just sucked in by the special effects and almost enjoying myself.

And then somebody in the movie would speak and ruin my movie buzz.

I won’t argue with anybody impressed by the visuals, especially the sporadically epic Chicago battle that features the sight of the Sears Tower on fire while dudes glide around it in those flying squirrel suits. (I know it’s called the Willis Tower nowadays, but F that noise, I still call it the Sears Tower.)

Moments like that keep me from hating Transformers 3 as a whole—I just hate a whole lot of it.

Things start out good enough, with the film supplying a fictional reason for our race to the moon in the ’60s. An alien spacecraft landed there, and a frantic John F. Kennedy—represented in this film by a very poor digital recreation—wants to be the first to explore it. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin—who appears, as himself, later in the movie—get to the ship, and take some crazy Transformer artifact out of it.

Cut to the present day, where Sam, played once again by Shia “I Feed on Suck Movies” LaBeouf, has got a new girlfriend (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), and he’s looking for a job. He winds up working as a mailroom guy, kind of a comedown after saving the world and getting a medal from Obama. His girlfriend works for Patrick Dempsey who, as usual, plays a total idiot. Sam is jealous, and we couldn’t care less. We want robot action, not Patrick Dempsey making Shia LaBeouf scowl.

Robot action does come in a few solid sequences that take full advantage of the 3-D spectrum. I really enjoyed a highway chase involving multiple Autobots and Decepticons. (I had to refer to them once in this article with their proper robot designations so as to impress the Transformers geeks.)

Even the mediocre moments are consistently ruined by people talking and wasting much of this film’s mammoth 152-minute running time. Why are there people in these things anyway? Just give us the damned robots, and cut the running time to 90 minutes.

As for high-profile actors, John Malkovich shows up in the role of Sam’s boss, and he mugs so much you could attach a handle to his skull and drink a hot cup of coffee out of his face. John Turturro has his third go-round in a Transformers movie, and I just sort of hate him now. Most shockingly, Oscar winner Frances McDormand shows up as a CIA whatever and makes you want to take the Academy Award back and shove it up Turturro’s ass.

Seriously I used to like LaBeouf, but I’m beginning to think he’s a few clicks shy of dipshit. This is a kid who could’ve gone the Dustin Hoffman route. He has talent, and his face doesn’t crack mirrors, but he ain’t no Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. I would also say he’s a big dumb douche who needs to shut his mouth in public, but the dude has money and could have me killed, so I will refrain.

When LaBeouf is matched up with an Amazonian goddess, he looks downright ugly in comparison. Watching him kiss a Victoria’s Secret model is like watching Vincent D’Onofrio’s droopy-faced character in Men In Black kissing Aphrodite.

When the camera molests Huntington-Whiteley, I feel like it is a POV from Michael Bay’s perverted tongue trying to lick her. That’s right … I said it … when I watched Transformers 3 and the camera lingered on her ass I felt like I was Michael Bay’s putrid tongue.

In other words, I really didn’t like this stupid-assed, obnoxious, overlong, ridiculous movie. And Shia LaBeouf can go swing on some vines with CGI monkeys for all I care.