Comfortably dumb: Long, confusing battle sequences in ‘Transformers’ steamroll any attempt at plot - Entertainment, Movies - Navy Times

Comfortably dumb: Long, confusing battle sequences in ‘Transformers’ steamroll any attempt at plot

To his credit, Michael Bay tries to put a more human touch into “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” aiming to make up for the clattering mess of overgrown kitchen appliances that duked it out in the franchise’s prior installment.

Bay went to the far side of the moon and even to planet Vulcan, enlisting John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mr. Spock in search of the human face of the “Transformers” universe.

And he came back with another loud, long, bruising and wearisome onslaught of giant, shape-shifting robots. The human element arises largely from archival footage involving the 1960s space race, along with images that may disturb younger kids as a succession of screaming, scrambling humans are vaporized.

The stunts and digital imagery are more dazzling than the visuals of Bay’s first two “Transformers” tales, but it all flies by in such a frenzy that it’s a challenge to figure out who’s who, and which machines you should be rooting for.

Unlike “Revenge of the Fallen,” this third installment actually has a plot, or at least starts with one before the movie lapses into nonsense. Returning screenwriter Ehren Kruger weaves in a 1960s prologue as NASA tracks the crash of an alien ship on the moon, prompting Kennedy to order a salvage mission under cover of his call to beat the Russians to the lunar surface.

The crashed vessel carried technology that was the Autobots’ last hope in their losing battle against the Decepticons. It also carried the Autobots’ leader, Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy, who also is seen briefly as Spock from a “Star Trek” episode in a strange marriage of Paramount’s two big sci-fi franchises).

Sentinel Prime is revived by his protégé and successor, Optimus Prime (again voiced by Peter Cullen), and the two lead their scant Autobot forces and human allies against Decepticon leader Megatron (Hugo Weaving) in the race to recover the lost technology.

Earth’s fate is again in the balance, with Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky naturally at the center of things. Bay cast out Megan Fox as Sam’s girlfriend, replacing her with new romantic interest Carly (Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley).

Like Fox, Huntington-Whiteley is never expected to do more than look hot while in deathly peril in the clutches of hulking robots, so in that regard at least, her big-screen debut is a success.

LaBeouf is reunited with Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as leaders of the human strike forces, along with John Turturro as a former government operative who jumps back into the battle.

Some genuine humor arises early on, courtesy of John Malkovich as Sam’s quirkily autocratic new boss and Frances McDormand as a supremely capable but by-the-book intelligence chief.

But the humor fades as Bay ratchets up the relentless action, the battles grinding on so long that the motion and noise turn numbing.

“Dark of the Moon” mostly is an expensive exercise in rubbernecking, the audience getting to watch colossal carnage and destruction from the safety of stadium seating.