Transformers: Age of Extinction - Analysis and Review

^^This is the only second I liked in this movie^^

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! What the? What the ****? WHAT THE ****? WHAT THE **** WAS THAT???

The Plot

Five years after the battle of Chicago from Dark of the Moon, wannabe inventor Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) struggles to make ends meat to support his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz). When opportunity comes in the form of a beat up flat nose truck, Cade unknowingly puts himself into a large government conspiracy that is tied into an intergalactic manhunt that is also tied into a plot to cause mass extinction the likes of which have never been experienced since the dinosaurs.

Analysis

I'll just leave this portion to the review.

Review

For a long time I've laughed at G1 fans who protest with signs that say "DAMN YOU MICHAEL BAY FOR RUINING MY CHILDHOOD!" Yes, I was a fan, but even my criticisms of Revenge of the Fallen did not make me want to rally behind them in chanting "Death to Michael Bay!" I've always been the guy who said, yes Revenge is bad and I hate it but there are some things that are enjoyable. I've also been the guy who said I really like Dark of the Moon because the action was clearer and the forced love story is actually more believable. But for this one. The fourth time. You'd think that by the fourth time and a break from these movies would actually make it into something fresh and exciting.

WROOOOOONG!

I really don't like this movie. I really don't. I hate it. I hate the fact that it sucked me in with promises of maybe a more interesting cast of characters played by mostly class actors. The likes of Kelsey Grammer and Stanley Tucci. And yes when he's given good material Mark Wahlberg is an amazing actor. But no. Just no. They all sucked. Their characters sucked. And I'm not going to criticize their acting because I sure as hell know they were directed to act a certain way, and with the direction given them they act accordingly to the material. Which makes them all suck! Because the material they're working with just sucks so much!

You'd think by now that they've done three of these movies already one would think that to get fans to stop complaining about the human story is to make a better story! The fact that the human story in here starts out simple: a father wants to make money to put his daughter to college by whatever means necessary, is a great starting point! But that gets completely derailed the minute the big government black ops guys show up to cause shit to happen leading to other shit to go down and more shit to come. I mean seriously it is obvious that we're suppose to rooting for the poor father, but in the end we don't care. We don't care about the fact that he's about to lose his house or that his daughter can't get any scholarships. We just don't care about them. It tries so hard to make these characters likable. Shia LaBeouf's character and whatever extraordinarily hot piece of ass that's his girlfriend at the moment is more likable than the Yaeger family. 

The Best Way to describe them is annoying and dumb. Particularly Tessa (Peltz) and her boyfriend Shane played by Jack Reynor. There was nothing to make us root for the two of them as a couple. There was nothing remotely likable about their characters. Nicola Peltz gets a lot of flack for her acting as the animation icon Katara in Shamylan's Last Airbender film and while it has vastly improved in Bates Motel her acting in here is back to the horrible acting that was seen in the Shamylan debacle. Her character is pretty much exactly the same as the one played in Bates Motel. The only difference is that while we don't like her character because of what she does, in Age of Extinction we don't like her because we just simply don't like her. Sure, she's having trouble getting scholarships and she cares about her father. The problem is those are literally in only two moment at the beginning of the movie that never really add up to anything else in the movie. And while Reynor's Shane is no way a leading man, because that role is suppose to be filled by Wahlberg, but he is not even a great supporting character. His only purpose is to be the driver. Yes, the driver. His job in the movie is to be the driver. The driver. And there is a lot of driving in this movie. So I guess we need a driver. A driver. A driver who is not brave at all. One would think that maybe Nicola's character would be smart enough to realize who much her boyfriend is pretty much useless in a really horrifying situation. But no, she sees his acts as heroic when the real "heroism" is by her father. 

Also I should point out one idiotic scene from the film. While Optimus Prime is battling new villain, Lockdown, Cade and Shane are separated from Tessa who is unable to run to them because Optimus and Lockdown are in the way. Cade tells Tessa to run into the open fields to get away from the two gigantic robots fighting. Which is the smart thing to do! And she does run! Then runs back to the middle of the fight! And in the middle of the fight she gets into a broken car because movie logic deems that it would protect her while this fight goes on! It was so idiotic! There was not a single moment of believability that she didn't have a chance to run away from the fight. There was not a single moment of believability that there was no way Cade or Shane could go get her! Actually, Cade does go run to get his daughter but gets tackled by Shane because he was afraid he'd get killed. Shane saves the life of the father of his girlfriend instead of actually trying to save his girlfriend who he claims he really really....likes. WHAT THE ****?! It was also an excuse to have the daughter get captured by an alien spaceship! She runs back to the danger instead of the danger just so that the human leads have a reason for wanting to go with the Autobots into the spaceship! BAD WRITING! BAD WRITING EVERYWHERE!

Also the product placement is horrendous. People laughed about the product placement in Man of Steel but in here the product placement is so hilariously and annoyingly obvious. Like literally so obvious and not subtle. There was no subtlety with the product placement. It was just so in your face and so obvious, that I'm repeating myself just so that you know the product placement is obvious.

I'll give ILM and the Autobots their credit though. This film, like the original, actually takes a moment to establish the personalities of the different heroic robots. And that's it. John Goodman plays...the fat bearded jolly robot. Ken Watanabe plays the....Japanese samurai that turns into a German car manufactured in France...why is his car not Japanese? John DiMaggio plays...the gunslinger. And you know who Optimus Prime and Bumblebee are already. 

But then let's talk about the Bad Guys. The idea of Lockdown, the robot bounty hunter who kills Autobots and Decepticons for a higher power, is a really cool one. He's the best villain the series has, but also doesn't do much. All he does is repeat who his character is: "I fight for our creators, and our creators want you." Yeah, this actually brings up the concept that Transformers are manufactured, a question that a lot of people have been wondering. Where do they come from? Well we do see their creators in the prologue. More specifically the hand of one of their creators but not the full reveal. It is obvious this is the idea they wanted to play with for the sequel. The problem is the idea of their creators gets overshadowed by the hot mess of the plot.

Oh, by the way, Galvatron is in the movie. Yeah, Megatron comes back...again. But this time he officially comes back as Galvatron. And is finally voiced by Frank Welker, the original voice actor for Megatron in the cartoons. I'm not going to go into details on his role, because honestly it was just shoved in there just so that he's in there. Just like the Decepticons. They're in the movie too. And how they transform just comes off as cheap. Really cheap. It is not cool and it is not creative. It just comes off as a cheap way to make transformations easier.

Oh, wait, I almost forgot about the Dinobots! The one thing that made me want to see this movie! The one thing that I told myself even if this movie sucked I know they will make this movie worth it!.....They were not worth it. A smile did not come to my face when they finally showed up. I felt nothing. I was annoyed that I had to wait 2 hours and 20 minutes for them to show up conveniently in the last 25 minutes. They may look cool, their designs may be awesome, they may be back for the sequel. But they're not worth putting in all the marketing. Especially if they're not in the movie.

I haven't even touched on the plot of this movie yet. I'll tell you what the plot of this movie should've been and not what it is. It should've been Lockdown is hunting transformers and the government strikes a deal to help him accomplish this. The Autobots and the Decepticons left on the planet have to work together in order to prevent being captured by this menacing machine. Hell, Lockdown could've used the Dinobots as his hunting dogs so they would've been in the whole movie then switched sides to turn their back on Lockdown. But that is not the movie we got. What we got instead is a mixed bag of things that could've worked by themselves as 4 different movies but instead got jammed into one really long movie that feels longer than it should.

Final Thoughts

Apologies to anyone who actually read all that. But to put it simply: I hate this movie. Hate it. I've never been mad about a movie before, even a really bad one, but this one had me seething with anger. I thought that would never happen to me. I thought I would never be like those other hardcore G1 Transformers fans. But now I finally feel their pain and suffering. I finally can say this:

SCORE: 2/10 - You finally ruined my childhood, Michael Bay. Finally.

For a review of the previous film, CLICK HERE