Review of Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) by Amichay O — 28 May 2015

Another city destroying finale is the culmination of a violent, gruelling and surprisingly sweary film based on a child's toy line. Human villains in sunglasses and trenchcoats is tired, and while there is some satisfaction in seeing a irritating comic relief being dispatched surprisingly early on, lingering shots on a burnt corpse is a bit strong for a film made primarily to sell toys.

The effects are top notch, but the tone is horribly misjudged as is Bay's attempt at human drama. Tough guy dialogue is second rate at best ("never!" Exclaims an autobot when pressed for information from brutal new villain Lockdown "never is here" replies the antagonist after ripping out his robot heart.

That and "my face is my warrant" is just lame). Bay appears to have learned a lot following the frankly racist "Fallen", but there are some cliched archetypes riddling this hyper violent and over long toy commercial, which may not be insulting to an audience's moral integrity, but certainly to its intelligence.

Who, exactly, are they making these films for? No heroic integrity (Optimus seems to want to kill a lot and frequently does- including people, however bad they might be that doesn't sit right, but that's nothing compared to the weird sociopolitical subtext about post-war ally relations and immigration.