Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction

I was never a big fan of the Transformers franchise, I liked the first one, I hated the second one but I didn't mind the third one (but I still think it was bad). I thought that the third film would be the last thing we would hear from this franchise, but I was wrong. This year, Michael Bay has cooked up another installment in the franchise but this time with Dinobots! So is the latest installment finally be something really good or is it another mess of explosions and gratuitous shots? Click on the jump and find out my thoughts.

Synopsis:

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION begins after an epic battle left a great city torn, but with the world saved. As humanity picks up the pieces, a shadowy group reveals itself in an attempt to control the direction of history...while an ancient, powerful new menace sets Earth in its crosshairs. With help from a new cast of humans (led by Mark Wahlberg), Optimus Prime and the Autobots rise to meet their most fearsome challenge yet. In an incredible adventure, they are swept up in a war of good and evil, ultimately leading to a climactic battle across the world. (C) Paramount

Running at a whopping 165 minutes, this is the longest Transformers film ever and in my opinion that is a very bad thing and here's why. The first 30 minutes of the film sets up the tone and the plot for this film. The aftermath of the Chicago battle is felt all throughout in the film and I quite liked that touch but then they used it over and over and it somehow felt that it is now a plot device. I'm just gonna say this now, after that first 30 minutes that I mentioned earlier, it suddenly became the same exact movie as the other Transformers film. The plot surely is the weakest link of the film, it was just recycled and delivered nothing new aside from new robot fights.

Another thing that I disliked about the plot of this film is how cluttered and messy it is. They want to keep adding more and more to there already crowded mythology and expect the audience to just follow it all. It also just felt like the writers had this crazy idea for their next installment (already) and they just want to hammer it down to this film just so that they'll use it as a plot device for this (and the next film). I just hope that if they ever made another TF film, I just hope that they would think about the plot first but I highly doubt that. One last complaint that I have for this film is how it keeps on continuing the story even though there is nothing much more to go on, for a blockbuster it actually became a bit dragging and exhausting.

Let's go back to the first 30 minutes of the movie though, the reason why I liked this is they didn't ignore what occurred in it's predecessors and it actually made the humans feel like a threat to the Transformers and even though this was still a human-centric Transformers film, it still gave off this illusion that the Transformers was the protagonist in the film and not Wahlberg's character. The inclusion of the Dinobots too was also pretty good but it was done a little too late in the movie.

The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor and Stanley Tucci, can you guess which actor did a good job and which actor did a bad job? Okay I'm just gonna answer that one, of course Wahlberg and Tucci was the best part of the film acting wise but let me say this though, Wahlberg plays a character who is an inventor, I have to admit that this is an idea that is hard to wrap around my head because he doesn't strike me as an inventor, nevertheless, he did a good job and he was a much better lead than Shia Labeouf. All I can say about Tucci though is he was great with the trashy material he was given but I hate that he is basically the substitute for John Turturro's character from the past films. As for the other leads though, Peltz and Reynor, they were so bad, they were dull and basically no emotions was shown during their delivery of lines, they weren't even trying at all.

Providing the voices for the autobots though are Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime), John Goodman (Hound), Ken Watanabe (Drift), and John Dimaggio (Crosshairs). They were phenomenal to listen to and their voices really felt authentic and really fits with their character. As for the villains, Mark Ryan voiced Lockdown and Frank Weller voiced Galvatron. Galvatron is a revived Megatron so nothing much is new here but his voice was as awesome Hugo Weaving's Megatron. Mark Ryan as Lockdown was just awesome, Lockdown was the saving grace of the film for me because his presence was just scary and when he spoke, he just became much more terrifying.

Too much negativity has already been shed (as seen above) maybe it's time to show a little bit of light to it. So let me show some positives that I have for this film, and that comes from the technical aspects of the film. The VFX was really good in this film although at times it kinda look unfinished but still managed to be good enough by its standards. The sound mixing and score for the film was also quite solid and helped the action scenes feel much more intense. One thing that I really liked in this film is the cinematography, even though shakey cam and low angle shots were present, the good shots of the action scenes outweighs a few bad shots of the action scenes. Speaking of action, Bay turned up the action in this film to 11, it was much more explosive (literally) and much more suspenseful.

Now that I've talked about my positives and negatives, let's now mix up the two and talk about Michael Bay's direction. This is probably the most Michael Bay film that Michael Bay ever did. Explosions everywhere, slo-mo shots every now and then, gratuitous shots of girls, low-angle shots and over-saturated colors. These are all good and bad things in this film because at first it was quite fun but then it was overused like how the plot plays out.

The only thing that I really liked about Michael Bay's direction in this film is how he showed the last 30 minutes of the film because it was just non-stop action and it really showed the Transformers in their full glory and made the human characters feel like side characters, and that they would only show up when it's convenient for the plot to move on.

Overall:
Even though I have lots of negativity towards this film, I still have to admit that I enjoyed it but that's mainly because of the fun 4DX Experience I had, it was just something else and surely is one hell of a thrill ride. This in my opinion is on par with the quality of the first one, but that really isn't saying much about this movie though. This additional film to the franchise is just one hot mess but still managed to be entertaining at some parts. All I have to say is, a big thanks to Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Lockdown, the Dinobots and the 4DX Experience, these helped me get through this movie and helped me to give this an "okay" rating.

Grade:

Favorite lines:

NOTHING BECAUSE THE DIALOGUES WERE DUMB!