With “Transformers,” the third time is apparently the charm.
Not that there’s much that’s actually charming about “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” It is the same sort of deafening mayhem celebration as its two absolutely awful predecessors.
Except this time it works. Or at least it isn’t fully repugnant. OK, I’ll admit it — this is hard — the big silly thing is sort of great.
An admission like that can end a critical career, the first two “Transformers” movies being among the most loathsome films of the past decade, but it must be made.
The truth is, “Dark of the Moon,” shot partially in Michigan, is often visually astounding, never outright boring or confusing, and — to the extent this can be said about any film involving giant space robots — it actually makes sense.

And if the metallic nature of most of its heroes keeps it from ever making true emotional connections, the addition of Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whitely to the cast certainly gives the film even more gratuitous and delightfully inappropriate erotic charge than its predecessors.
To see the lithe, leggy, tanned Huntington-Whitely set in a lingerie pose with impossibly full pouty lips as the city of Chicago is reduced to rubble all around her is to know the heart of modern Hollywood entertainment.
Sex, violence, action: This is multiplex heaven.
Huntington-Whitely plays Carly, the new squeeze of hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf). Having twice saved the world, and having received a medal from the president for his efforts, Sam is now scrounging for a low-level job in Washington, D.C.
Somehow he has traded in former “Transformers” girlfriend Megan Fox for an even more amazing looking woman who is happy to support him. Yeah, that would happen.
In the universe beyond Sam’s love life, though, bad things are afoot. It turns out decades back, a spaceship crashed on the far side of the moon, carrying a long lost Autobot (good space robot) and a shipment of magical something-or-others.
Mankind’s entire space program was, in fact, a series of secret efforts to get to this space ship. Actual astronaut Buzz Aldrin is in the movie, so it must be true.
Anyhow, both the Autobots and the Decepticons (bad space robots) hear about the crashed ship, and the battle is on to control the magical something-or-others as well as the ship’s powerful pilot, Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy!).
As in previous films, Sam basically runs screaming through all the ensuing chaos while holding hands with Carly, who stops from time to time to give a runway pose.
The big difference in this “Transformers,” aside from the plot being at least semi-coherent, is that director Michael Bay finally has control of his quick-change robots.
Whether it’s because he was shooting in 3-D (which is the best since “Avatar”) or somehow found inner peace, the once herky-jerky hectic transitions have been smoothed out and turned into a sort of mechanical ballet of costume changes.
Indeed, Bay uses a lot of slow-motion here, and the result is downright lush.
“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is every bit the summer popcorn extravaganza it’s supposed to be — overheated, delirious, technically amazing and just big dumb fun. Multiplex heaven.

From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110629/OPINION03/106290304/-Transformers–Dark-of-the-Moon’-defines-summer-moviemaking#ixzz1QdmJ3RwI