Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Directed by Michael Bay

(PG-13)

**

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The third installment in the Transformers franchise is “by far the best 3-D sequel ever made about gigantic toys from outer space,” said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. That may seem a laughable achievement, but it appears to have been the goal of director Michael Bay, whose movies aren’t films so much as “symphonies of excess.” The story this time recasts the 1969 moon landing as an event most significant because it uncovered the remains of an alien robot (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), who in the present is awakened to help battle a group of evil robots bent on taking over Earth. T3 offers “conspicuous improvements” over the previous sequel (2009’s Revenge of the Fallen), such as a more coherent story, said Justin Chang in Variety. It “may still be a big, bloated spectacle, but it’s a big, bloated spectacle you can just about follow.” That diminishes what Bay has achieved here, said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. This movie is a landmark—“the Wagnerian fulfillment” of everything vulgar and adolescent about the American summer movie tradition. “You should see it” for that reason alone.