Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

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n Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

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nDirector: Michael Bay

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nCast: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, NicolanPeltz, Jack Reynor

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nSo I was willing to give this movie the benefit of the doubtnbecause dammit, I don’t like to hate on a director just because. I really don’tnlike it when people hate a director by default, just because everybody elsensays his films stink. This review comes from a guy who actually kind of enjoyed Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011) So I went into Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)nwith the best of intentions, completely willing to give the film a chance;ncause who knows, maybe Michael Bay has learned a thing or two about what workednand didn’t work with his previous films. But alas, it seems success has blindednMichael Bay’s judgment, he knows not what makes a good movie. Let’s face it,nthe only reason these movies are making money is because people love thenconcept of The Transformers, not because they actually like these films,nbecause who in their right mind enjoys this crap?

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nThis time around, the Transformers are hiding from thengovernment because apparently, even though they saved the world from an alienninvasion in the last film; they are now seen as a threat to humanity. Sure theyndestroyed most of Chicago, but didn’t they also save like…the entire planetnfrom an alien invasion? But whatever; so anyhow, now The Transformers have goneninto hiding. But wait! Mark Wahlberg finds Optimus Prime and brings him back tonlife…because he’s an inventor and he likes to tinker around with mechanicalndoo-dads. So anyhow, one thing leads to another and it’s The Transformers vs.nThe Evil U.S. Government who wants to duplicate the Transformers DNA in ordernto create an army of Transformers so they can use them for military purposes. CannOptimus Prime lead the Transformers once again? Can he stop the humans fromncreating an army of Transformer clones?

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nFor the first few minutes of this movie, I was actuallynthinking to myself “why is everybody hating on this movie?” because we werengetting to meet these human characters, and suddenly little by littlentransformers are figuring into the story and I was like “this aint so bad”, butnthen, somewhere around the midsection, when the action begins, things begin tonfall apart. It’s the damn CGI characters, I can’t connect with them. And then, aroundnthe last forty minute mark I was praying for this film to be over! Then Inunderstand what everyone was bitching and moaning about. Then film turns into torture!nPure and simple torture because you can’t root for anyone, because thentransformers are not fleshed out characters and you can’t really root fornanyone all you see are things exploding with no sentimental or intellectualnvalue attached to the proceedings. Not even Optimus Prime, the main characternin the film, is a well developed character. He’s just this stock character,nalways speaking like some sort of wise man. Why the hell does Optimus Primenalways have to give people advice? The Transformers are all cardboard cut outs,ngeneric characters with no depth to them, I don’t think it’s the fact that theynare animated characters that doesn’t allow me to connect with them, it’s thenfact that they are not developed at all. They don’t have a personality. You won’tnknow who the villains are; you won’t know who the good guys are, because theynare all one huge indistinguishable pile of CGI crap.

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nThen there’s the action, which is very difficult to follownbecause it’s all just a mess, a huge, excessively loud CGI mess. And sad partnis that it’s more of the same, Transformers fighting in a city, destroyingneverything. I’m guessing that the reason why they decided to shoot part of thenfilm in China was to offer us different visuals; sadly, Michael Bay makes Chinanlook exactly the same as Chicago? Transformers fighting in between buildings isnthe same crap we’ve seen before, dammit Michael Bay you have all these millionsnat your disposal and you still can’t figure out a way to offer us somethingnvisually interesting or new? Come on dude. You could have tried somethingndifferent. Instead, we get the same crap we’ve seen before, explosions, cars flipping,nbuildings toppling…you even swiped ideas from Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013)!nThat whole thing about a space ship that sucks up everything in its path like angiant magnet and then drops it all back down? Totally stolen from Snyder’s Mannof Steel! Bay simply played around with the concept in his own way, but it’snquite obvious Bay wished he had come up with that idea, those scenes scratch onnplagiarism if you ask me.

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nSure, eliminating Shia LaBeouf from the franchise was a stepnin the right direction and replacing him with Mark Wahlberg was a genius idea,nbut then you get so many other things wrong, that it’s like taking ten stepsnback. Okay, the film does have its moments, the bit with the cars being suckednup in the air, even though extremely similar to what we already saw in Man ofnSteel, was entertaining. There are obviously some cool special effects in thenfilm, the problem is that it’s all so mind numbingly redundant, that Inliterally saw people walking out of the movie theater mid way through thenmovie. People just didn’t care. I didn’t care, and that’s something veryndifficult for me to do because I am very forgiving of films, especially lownbudget films that attempt to be creative. But when it’s multi-millionnproductions that have every possible tool at their disposal to make a goodnmovie and still don’t, well then I rip those movies a new asshole, which isnwhat I’m doing with Transformers: Age of Extinction. Michael Bay, shame on youndude.  You have to know when to cut back,nyou have to know when you have too much, and not enough of it is good. I mean,ndidn’t somebody in the studio watch this movie and think it was freakingnhorrendous? Or unnecessarily long? If a movie is going to be this long, thennthe least it could do is move us somehow, or attempt to at least connect withnyour audience, but damn it, three hours of impersonal CGI robots is torture fornthe senses. The Film Connoisseur says, skip this piece of crap! It’s the stuffnnightmares are made of! What a dissapointment this 2014 Summer Blockbuster Season has turned out to be!

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nRating: 1 out of 5  

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