Review of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) by Mrmoviebuff — 14 May 2016

Michael Bay is a director who doesn't know when to stop. Every single time one of his movies gets bashed by critics and audiences, he carries on making his movies, I'm not sure if that's an inspiration, or just that's plain ignoring everyone who is offering constructive criticism.

I did not have high hopes for 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' simply because after having sat through three of his other films, what could be so different about this one? Yes, it has a new cast, but new actors doesn't always improve a franchise, as long as the people behind the scenes remain unchanged, then you're getting the same product with some cool looking features.

Mark Wahlberg replaces the noisy Shia LaBeouf as Cade Yeager, a single father who lives in Texas with his daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz). He claims himself to be an inventor, often collecting old scraps of metal, and taking them into his barn outside his house, and trying to create something innovative. He comes across a Transformer in the form of a van and tries to fix it. The Transformer, of course, is Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and after having his life saved by Cade, Optimus promises to protect the Yeager family.

Kelsey Grammer is the main antagonist here, he believes that all of the Autobots are evil ever since the events that occurred in Chicago (check 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon'), and wants to wipe out all of the Autobots. We also meet a man named Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), the head of KSI who develops his own line of Transforming technology.

It seems that the plot needs to be put on hold for the sake of trying to focus on the Yeager family drama, as it seems that Cade's daughter, who is 17, is dating a 20 year old Shane Dyson (Jack Reynor). Obviously, any person will know that it is unacceptable for a man in his 20s to be dating someone under the age of 18, but there is one scene that actually lets the two love-birds explain why it is acceptable for the 20 year old and 17 year old to be dating. Shane even goes as far as to present Cade an official card which is basically saying that they are allowed to do some "naughty stuff", just because they have a card saying they could do so.

Michael Bay is known for trying to objectify women as much as he can (remember, he cast an underwear model who is not an actress in the previous installment), here, even though Peltz may have been age appropriate to appear the way she did in this, the fact that her character is under-age is just nothing more than a new low for the director. I apologize if it seems like I am going off-topic about the film's main plot, but clearly the film itself went off-topic hoping we wouldn't notice...but we did.

The action is your typical, slow-motion, low-angle, people running away from explosions and cars flipping over on a motorway style. There is nothing new, or different that makes this movie stand out from the previous installments, except that it's even more intolerable than before. Time and time again, my attention just wandered because this film is not very good at holding my interest, it is devoid of any intelligence or gripping moments.

The characters are nothing more than archetypes...the hero is your typical hero, the villain is your typical government official villain, the young blonde girl is your typical, attractive, damsel getting herself into distress.

This proves once again, that Michael Bay is a hack, cynical filmmaker, there seems to be a lack of focus and innovation in his skill as a filmmaker. He is better off directing more of those "Victoria's Secret" commercials, which is actually highlighted in this film. The product placement here is very in-your-face. Clearly to Bay, subtlety is overrated, everything has to have some form of exaggeration in case it wasn't clear to any of us.

The run time, which is at roughly 2h 40m...is way too long to keep us entertained, one minute of this film feels like 5 minutes. You just want it to end, but Bay is clearly not sick of this roller-coaster ride which stopped being fun ages ago.