You know you are in for a ride when the movie begins with a panoramic view of the Earth from the other side, the dark side of the Moon. Quite a nice touch there, using the actual dark side of the Moon to mean much more than just literally the dark side of the moon, but then, hey we aren't discussing the philosophical side of this title are we? Because if we are, then that is pretty much the topic of an entirely different post or maybe even a whole blog devoted to that :)


In any case, if you have read my earlier reviews of Transformers and Transformers : Revenge of the Fallen , you can clearly see that I am quite a fan of the Transformers franchise and the characters itself. Something about the fact that these vehicles 'transform' into these awesomely huge robots which kick some serious butt is exciting and takes me back to my teenage days. Having said, I will start this review with the disclaimer that I will tend to be a little biased probably towards making this movie actually sound a lot better than most of the world probably found it to be.


The story begins in 1961 when a Cybertronian spacecraft called the Ark carrying an invention capable of rebuilding Cybertron crashes into the dark side of the Moon. In fact the movie claims that this is the main reason that JFK put all his money and resolve behind getting man on the moon before the Russians did so that they can recover the alien spacecraft and keep it for themselves. I loved this particular distortion of history for cinematic purposes, plus it probably gives a more plausible reason as to why the USA and the Russians were in such a hurry in the 1960s to get to the Moon. It was not like there was water on the Moon in any case :)


The Autobots, while investigating Decepticon activity in Chernobyl come across a fuel cell from the Ark. This in turn leads them to the dark side of the Moon where they find Sentinel Prime, former leader of the Primes guarding the rest of the fuel cells in the Ark. He however is in a coma and Optimus Prime uses the energy from the Matrix of Leadership to revive him and brings him back to Earth.


So far so good. However, it's only after Sentinel Prime lands on Earth that the real plot begins to unravel. Giving that part of the story up in this review would spoil the entire movie for anybody who's not yet watched the movie itself. In any case, suffice to say that good ol' Megatron is back for the party, Chicago as a city is almost wrecked and we have enough and more explosions and stunt sequences to keep the kids happy till they become teenagers.


All in all, this movie turns out to be a stock summer blockbuster just like the earlier two movies in this franchise, albeit marginally better than the second one though. That being said there's nothing really memorable about this instalment though. I guess the novelty kind of wears off and the fact that there's only so many times that you can actually see robots taking each other on in urban settings and get excited about it. In fact what works against this movie is the fact that given that most action movies have these awesome stunt sequences nowadays there's nothing really spectacular or different about this movie that makes it stand out from the rest of the crowd. That being said, if you are a fan of the Transformers franchise and the characters, this movie has enough to keep you excited. What is good about this franchise is that each movie almost seamlessly picks up from where the earlier one ends.


Related links - 
Wikipedia link to the movie
IMDB link to the movie


Trailer - 


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