Transformers: Age of Extinction
I saw the first three Transformers movies and mostly enjoyed them overall, though I had issues with all of them. I wasn't that...ummm...enthused about seeing this one, but I ended up going anyway. I mainly went because it had been so long since I had seen one. There just haven't been as many movies out this summer that I was interested in. So I went to see this. It is ok as a mindless action movie, but that's about it.
The plot is wafer thin, dealing with a secret division of the CIA hunting down all Transformers even though the Autobots were supposed to have immunity or something like that. Cade Yeager is a struggling inventor who finds Optimus Prime. That puts him, his daughter Tessa, and her secret boyfriend Shane in the middle of a new mess.
This is another typical Michael Bay movie, which means there is an overload of action scenes and CGI while the the plot suffers. Some of the action scenes are cool, but it gets to the point where it loses the cool factor. The movie is 3 hours long. 3 hours. The previous Transformers movies were really a bit long, and this one is even longer. There is nowhere near enough plot to justify the movie being this long. After a certain point, all the giant robots fighting each other scenes all blend together into a big ol blurry, jerky mess. Bay again uses jerky camera work and quick cuts during action scenes, making it all but impossible to keep track of who is who at times. A few of the new Transformers change into some really awesome cars, including a Bugatti Veyron, but they are barely in the car forms, so it is a huge waste. What's the point of one of them turning into a Veyron when he spends less than 5 minutes total in that form, and when he is in that form, the camera bounces around too much to really show the car. During scenes when the cars are driving, there are these sweeping shots used that don't focus on anything really. It is annoying, but typical for Bay.
The human characters are all new for this movie. Most of them are really flat and not that interesting. Cade is ok and Mark Walhburg is an improvement over Shia LaBeouf. Tessa is annoying, whiney, and not likable at all. She made me miss Megan Fox's character from the first two movies. The different Transformers are like they have been, though the new ones introduced in this movie don't get much attention. Harold Attinger is the main villain of the movie and Kelsey Grammer is good in the part. Stanley Tucci turns every so often and adds some comic relief. There are a lot of attempts at humor that just don't work and a lot of product placements that can be slightly jarring.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is an average mindless action movie. It manages to be entertaining overall, but it could have been a lot better. Something is done that seems to be an obvious set up for another movie and since this one has made buckets of money, there is little chance that Bay will change anything and actually give the plot attention.
3 out of 5 stars
I did post a longer review on my movie blog.
Transformers: Age of Extinction
