Transformers: Dark of the Moon is too big and too noisy. But too good to miss. Recapturing the surprisingly effective original Transformers may not have been possible, but because of the impressive visual effects sequences, fans should be more than satisfied with what they get here. The conflict is simply defined. The Autobots (colorful robots) are here to protect the planet from the Decepticons (grey robots). It's not a very complicated concept, but the Transformers are still interesting to look at for a while. A couple even have hair this time.

The film opens well enough with another Transformers history lesson narrated by Optimus Prime, proceeded by the idea that the space race in the '60s was undertaken to investigate a crashed Autobot spaceship on our moon's dark side. Fast forward a half century, and Autobots are fighting for the American way of life by blowing up buildings and people in other countries. This gives them practice while waiting for Decepticons to return, which they do. The crashed spaceship called "The Arc" contains a technology that can teleport Transformers to Earth. Once the Decepticons return, they're hell bent on using it to take over the planet. Optimus Prime and the other Autobots just can't let that go. Apparently, fighting with the military turned Optimus into a murdering sociopath, because he spends most of his time torturing and executing Decepticons, while the other Autobots shout one liners in foreign accents. Except for Bumblebee. He still can't talk for whatever reason. His XM Satellite Radio voice, comprised of audio clips from the Paramount Pictures archive, may have been deemed too adorable to change.

The human characters are incidental. They represent the things to be saved, and nothing more. Sam Witwicky (Shia Lebeuf) is in the movie because he has to be. He does his best to to make a difference, but it's beginning to create an unnecessary distraction for the Transformers, who should be saving the world instead of rescuing self important little punks and their sexy girlfriends. Ditching the old girlfriend for the new one didn't effect much. Replacement hottie Carly Spencer (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) still works with cars, and is still used as eye candy. As for her performance. It was her first time. Some actor's first performances are in school plays. Others get their start in a big budget summer blockbuster franchise finale.

A few of the other new cast members are needlessly and irritatingly querky and exaggerated. The performances are either overbearing or awkward. Sam's boss, Bruce Brazos (John Malkovich) and the government big wig (Frances McDormand) were poorly conceived as eccentric oddballs, when the film was in desperate need of authority, and a sense of foreboding. McDormand, who performs brilliantly in films with real people, made a few half winded attempts to talk to CGI robots. But if she's not buying into it, neither am I. Buzz Aldrin playing himself was more convincing. Malkovich, on the other hand, embraced his useless character while fulfilling his role as "respected name added to the cast to boost credibility."

All plot and character aside, what the design and computer effects teams accomplished with the level of believability of these fighting robots is unmatched by anything so far. The Transformers blended extremely well with their environments, especially when flipping over cars in a freeway chase or killing each other in the middle of downtown Chicago. It was inspiring to look at, but sometimes difficult to follow shot by shot. With so much screen time dedicated to the Transformers, the editors must have been forced to randomly delete those boring human shots. You may see an awesome slow motion Transformer rescuing a human who's falling from a building, but you might not see that human actually fall.

Throughout the city wide battle, the odds are heavily in favor of the Decepticons. They've got more ships, more weapons and more giant robots. The ten or so Autobots have humans on their side, who contribute to the fight with the best standard issue automatic weapons our technology can offer. One curious omission has troubled me throughout the trilogy. With so many Transformers characters to choose from, where were the flying Autobots? Why were the Decepticons the only guys with air support? Did General Motors NOT make a red and yellow concept jet this year? And why wouldn't the Transformers just transform into something else when needed? As pointless as it is to ask such questions, the wandering mind wonders.

Dark of the Moon doesn't top the best aspects of the original or its sequel. But it improves upon the worst of both. While some truly stunning visuals and moments of drama make the film enjoyable, it's sloppy editing, overly comical characters and drawn out story prevent it from being anything more than a visual effects extravaganza. But every once in a while, that's enough. Don't blame the filmmakers for the movie's failures. I believe they did their job as best they could. Blame yourselves for expecting depth from a set of characters based on a child's toy from the 80s.