Review of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) by Suzanne M — 08 Apr 2015

What can you say, really? When this movie started I joked about the fact that the movie had been on less than a minute and I already questioned the lack of explosions and later on someone I was watching this with joked about where are the robots, which is funny because after that was said, one did appear 'Apocalypse Now' style out of some water, even though I'm sure someone just lost it because I compared them. So we all knew what we were getting into, but even so, this movie failed to entertain me even on that level.

The first problem is that it is too long, this could have very well been condensed and it certainly would have lessened the exhaustion. There is absolutely no need for this movie to have gone on as long as it did, it should have been at the most 2 hours 10 minutes, 2 hours 15 max, it would have been the shortest out of the films but as we know, bigger isn't always better. I'm sure in the heat of summer, seeing stuff on a big screen explode would have been a fun little way to spend a day but it doesn't really help that I felt numb to the action pretty much as soon as it began; and it usually helps if the action was fun to watch to begin with, as we've all seen this before. I am surprised though, the first 40 minutes were all character building moments, which I actually liked, I know you don't go to these for that reason, but it was certainly much appreciated, I even laughed at some of the jokes too and it had a surprising amount of witty remarks as well. I honestly thought that this movie was going to be different than the rest, but clearly, I was wrong.

It's just that the movie is just about stuff happening for nearly 3 hours and I can't really write about anything that happened at all. Kelsey Grammer and Stanley Tucci are up to something but I don't really know what it was, I know the basics of what Tucci was doing but Grammer? Forget it. There's this punisher type Transformer that doesn't really have an allegiance, or something, and only collects the bounty, or something. It's just a mess it really is. When Kelsey Grammer first appeared I could tell it was him straight away by his voice but it's just bizarre to see him in this, he appears threatening at first and puts in effort like he usually does but his character gets taken out so fast and anticlimactically it's a joke. Stanley Tucci is playing a variation on John Tuturro and he got annoying very quickly, credit to him as he's an amazing actor and jumps totally in but the longer it went on, the less funny it got. That bounty hunter Transformer was odd to see at first because none of the humans were attacking him but it makes sense in the end, I guess? Mark Wahlberg does what he can and makes everything watchable; I guess they just have liked working together in 'Pain and Gain' quite a bit. He is a good lead though and actually does something to help and gets himself involved, even if his gun never ran out of ammo. It made me laugh when Shane just showed up out of nowhere in a very, 'come with me if you want to live', moment where he drives like a real human being but that's all he can do because he is a poorly written and laughable character.

The story isn't all that great either, I didn't expect it to blow me away but it's just doing an X-Men but it's with Transformers now. It also really doesn't help that Optimus Prime is unlikeable, he blabs on at the start about how, 'we don't need you', and I'm just thinking, why do you just leave then? It's out planet, so go away, but then again we wouldn't have a movie, and there might be a reason why they can't leave but even so. Saying that, the new Autobots are fun and voiced by some very good actors, they have unique designs and you can actually tell them apart from one another, even though Bumblebee was hardly used! There was a very surprisingly gruesome death of a character part way through that took me by surprise, though but we see a bus with a Victoria's Secret ad on it get destroyed, so that's something? I will admit though, this film does get rid of some problems, the over excessive and unnecessary cursing seems to be gone, it might have some uses but they seemed to work better here than the past films where it actively irritated me; and the unnecessary and vulgar side Transformers are totally absent. There is one piece of product placement I saw but even then, it was very subtle and for anyone who goes on YouTube a lot, the KSI name made me laugh.

There were just some things that were so strange. There is a hand to hand fight scene during the movie that I thought was pretty well filmed, but there's a part where someone jumps from one part of the building to another and the way it was edited made no sense whatsoever, it's on screen for about a second so blink and you'll miss. Also, a battle torn Transformer can just scan a vehicle and get a totally perfect paintjob? Alrighty then. But that isn't even the worst of it, if you thought Unobtainium was bad, you haven't seen anything yet, I thought nothing could get worse than that but Transforium might have done the trick. Probably the most bizarre thing is that right at the end of the movie, it's revealed Optimus can fly now... So wouldn't that have been a very useful thing to have used earlier on in the movie?!

The movie looks nice and has some typically beautiful shots like Michael Bay usually gets, as well as good visual effects, accompanied by a nice soundtrack as well but it doesn't change the fact that I was bored and numb to it all. I was cracking my knuckles and fidgeting in my seat all the while robot carnage is happening on screen and there is something dreadfully wrong with that. It's not like I feel like I'm above movies like this because who doesn't love to see a good action film? But I can't lie about what happened whilst I was watching this. Even the action by the end started to look a little rough around the edges, which is crazy to think that could happen with a film that is all about the visuals. But hey, at least the final battle is in Beijing? That's something, right? Space could have been cool. We get a Rainbow Dash Easter egg but even with that I felt like they showed her too long for it to be a little wink to the audience.

It's just so strange, Michael Bay had a pretty big reset button for this movie and pretty much did all his normal schtick, which makes resetting the cast and premise seem pointless, and apparently he isn't even directing the next one. Someone says during the film, 'we all work for someone', and besides thinking about people who own their own business, who still have to pay the government, we're working for Michael Bay here, we keep paying and he keeps making. There's also a rather ironic line at the start with someone talking about unnecessary sequels and remakes and it's unbelievable to think that line worked its way into the script because you know people will use it for just an occasion like this. I like Michael Bay and thinking about it, I've liked all of his movies that I have seen that aren't 'Transformers' related but even the first 'Transformers' movie looks down on this one. I just don't see the point to this existing at all but it makes a lot of money and that's all the answers I need. These films just need a sense of humour, make it a satire or a very self aware comedy or something, the overly serious characters going on about government nonsense that no one cares about with the serious bounty hunter and the end of the world dialogue is so overdone now. At first it looked like it was going to be played up for a laugh because all the bad guys were in black suits and black cars, but no, this is supposed to be serious. It'd also be nice to have the focus be on the Transformers and using their abilities in a way that makes sense for them to be transformable, the cartoons always did that but watching this, it is an underutilized gimmick.

Thinking about it, I don't feel like he makes these anymore, I feel like the studios are breathing down his neck more than anything. For someone who made 'Pain & Gain' the year before, which is a movie I really love, this movie just baffles me, it really does. Especially because that film was, not including credits, 1 hour and 58 minutes and it was all tightly packed and excellently paced, he did an excellent job. He spoke about it having a different tone and being a different movie and for a while, it looked that way, the first 40 minutes, like I said, were really good but then the first big explosion happened and then it was all downhill from there. So either Bay did the first part of the film and the studios thought, 'right, that's your lot', or it was the other way around, I don't know, I wasn't there. Like I said, apparently he isn't doing the next part which might be a good thing for him to go do something else.