Transformers: Dark of the Moon [DVD]

Good film

Brilliant for 3D effects on animation movies.

I was a little disappointed in Transformers 2 as the transformers themselves barely got any air time at all! The first of course was fantastic, a good balance of both the human and transformers worlds, and good strong character plots, you really got to know the whacky world of the Witwicky household etc!Now I'm still not 100% with the plot in the third installment... BUT there has been a great effort in the effects department and it pays off on screen, a lot of action bursting from scene to scene. Again the plot seems somewhat watered down, there seems to be a number of key elements missing from the story throughout and a couple of fight scenes between Autobots and Decepticons are a little too close range and hard to tell who's who and whats even happening, however the efforts are there that were missing in the second installment and children in particular I'm sure would love it!The comedy by far is a great step personally, I had a great laugh with Jerry Wang (Ken Jeong's character), Bruce Brazos (the ever fantastic John Malkovich) and of course naturally Simmons (played by funny man John Turturro). Though I found myself not liking Sam's character too much this time round (played by Shia LaBeouf) who played a very often more aggressive mode throughout the film, beating up the little bots who were loyally sticking by his side and just looked super stressed naturally! (Though it seemed to help in playing the role with the bot watch that controlled his arm at one stage, there were a few funny moments there). Also a good mention for Dutch (Alan Tudyk) a scene meeting in a private bar involving a 'gunning' holdup! Got a little of a different side to his character he played greatly!So basically though it lacks in story telling overall bar the start, the character interaction is coming back close to the first maybe best still in the fourth? The comedy brings back a bit more of the boys toys theme rather than just totally destructive machines! A good balance of action and a fairly good pace to the film make it for me a strong 4.8 stars (rounded to 5 rather than 4 for the efforts, I know Bay had a lot of slack for the second and the treatment of Fox but to be honest it could have been dealt with better! I still see Bay as a spoiled child with serious tantrum syndrome but he seemed to buckle down a bit more for this movie, maybe if he got Bad Boys III into action before thinking of Transformers 4 just to get a bit of crazy out on screen, atleast whatever Smith and Laurence get they turn into gold! But I hear this is already in production so to be honest, whatever you think of Bay he does make an awesome shoot em up action movie!)P.s, was it me or did Frances McDormand look severely dehydrated?

My daughter liked it

The latest live action Transformers movie comes to dvd.Once again we touch in with Sam Witwicky, who is now out of college and looking for a job. He's lost one glamorous girlfriend. But gained another. The Autobots are still working with humans and fighting the Deceptions. But the latter have another dastardly scheme in the works.As this comes to light secrets of the Apollo programme and the war that led to the destruction of the robot's homeworld are revealed. The Earth comes under threat. Humans and Autobots must fight together to save it.After the hostile reviews of the second film, this doesn't really do much to fix the problems people had with it.Firstly, Mikaela is no longer around. Because of well documented problems between Megan Fox and the production team. She is rather cursorily written out. In a manner that, given the emotional journey the two characters went through in the first two films, just doesn't really convince.Sam's new girlfriend Carly is played by model Roise-Huntington-Whiteley. In her first acting role. Once you get used to her accent she's not terrible but she's ill served by a character who might as well be Mikaela all over again, as there are times when you feel she might just be saying lines that were originally written for Megan Fox.The goofy humour of the second film has almost disappeared. Save for a few moments early on. And there are less adult references. But this is still a twelve certificate, thanks to some of the fight scenes.The plot is serviceable enough, and the film does get very strong in the middle when all hope seems lost and people have to rise to the occasion. This all leads to a huge battle sequence that goes on for the final third of the film. Whilst being spectcular at points and having an excellent scene of people wing jumping into a devastated city, which is shot mostly from their point of view and really convinces, the big problem with this part is the same as in the second film. Whilst it's fine to bring in more robots than were seen in the first film, there are simply too many of them and very few get anything in the way of a proper introduction. Thus if you don't know the characters from other Transformers products or have a scorecard, you could get lost.Having said all that I found the second film worked perfectly on a second viewing. Films often do when you know the story and thus have time to take in all the other details. Maybe this one will as well. But I'm not quite so inclined to find out.An effective action flick at points though. But very much an end to this trilogy. There will be a Transformers four, so here's hoping that a new start can recover the spirit that made the first film good.There is just one extra scene at the end, and it comes early on during the credits.The dvd has the following language and subtitle options:Languages: English, Hindi.Subtitles: English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Swedish.It has no extras. Whatsoever.But at least once you've loaded the disc up it goes straight into the main menu without you having to get through lots of trailers first.