Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Yeah, we went there. I know the first one was dumb fun, and the second was mostly just dumb, but what can I say? It's summer, it's nearly the Fourth, and so it's time for Michael Bay to blow up some shit.

And blow it up he did. T3 opens with the usual pretentious voice-over and then a whole lot of back story. We spend some time wading through a bunch of establishing characterization so we can basically catch up with the cast. Megan Fox isn't here, but her lips are, though now transplanted onto the even hotter but no more talented Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. The sense of humor that had vanished from the second film was back, and it helped--as did the presence of Leonard Nimoy as the voice of a key character.

After something over an hour, we hit the big action scene, which one might reasonably conclude would begin the conclusion of the movie.

In this case, though, the scene runs over an hour, kind of like a trailer that never ends.

I'm mocking the film, and on many levels it deserves mockery, but I nonetheless had a fine time watching it. It was exactly what I expected, so I left the theater happy.

As we were gathering in the lobby, the sprawling outdoor mall complex that includes the theater began its fireworks show. So, we rushed outside and caught almost all the fireworks. Watching the sky explode with color on a warm summer night is a wonderful thing, a fine end to an even louder, more explosive movie.