Transformers: Age of Extinction is director Michael Bay’s fourth film in his entertaining yet critically panned alien/robot franchise. This film is set five years after the events of Dark of the Moon where most of the city of Chicago was destroyed in an alien invasion before being stopped by Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots. Now it is present day and the remaining Transformers, both Autobot and Decepticon are being hunted down by the US government and another mysterious enemy. After a short recap of events we meet down on his luck inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) and his 17 year old daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz, who is clearly in the ‘dodgy acting but good eye candy’ role for this film) who struggles to have a normal life with her overbearing father, she does however have a boyfriend called Shane (Jack Reynor) who she’s been hiding from her dad. Everything changes for them when Cade discovers an old truck which just so happens to be Optimus Prime! This leads us in to a story full of car chases, evil government types and of course massive explosions! Exciting stuff right? Sadly not…
Having enjoyed the previous Transformers films despite being well aware of their flaws I went in to this movie knowing what to expect and in fairness you do get all the customary Michael Bay features, most within the first 5 minutes of the film! The man is well aware of the criticism he receives and if anything he’s on his worst behaviour in this film. Explosions come thick and fast, each one seeming to say “f**k you random critic who doesn’t like me blowing shit up!” The action has never been a problem for me with these movies but in this film I think the quality of the set pieces has dipped since the previous film which really had some jaw dropping moments, for example the wingsuit scene which I still enjoy watching back. This film does get it’s standout moment when we finally see the Dinobots, they prove to be just as badass as you would imagine but they have such small screentime they are soon forgotten about.
We get a few new Autobots in this film and they all play their part and are voiced adequately by John Goodman, Ken Watanabe and John DiMaggio, although you never really care much for their characters. The standout voice actor again however is Peter Cullen reprising his role as Optimus, a role he has played since 1986 and he has never sounded better. A special mention too has to go to Mark Ryan who voices Lockdown, the new threat that the Autobots have to face. He is a brilliant villain who rivals Megatron from the previous films as most ruthless and pure evil baddie. His mission is to take out Transformers and he does it with a chilling ease.
Mark Wahlberg is the main human protagonist in this film and he is actually a very likeable and believable hero. His performance is one of the highlights of the movie as you see the love he has for his daughter and that everything he does is to protect her. As well as his caring side he does get several chances to prove himself as the hero, one standout moment being when he is chased down several floors of a Chinese housing estate by a CIA agent, a great setpiece which ends in a bloody fight. Some of the other new human characters we meet are Kelsey Grammer’s hate fuelled CIA operative Attinger, who works with Lockdown in tracking the remaining Autobots and Decepticons, and Stanley Tucci’s Joshua Joyce who is the head of a company called KSI which plans on creating Transformers of their own. Both of these are experienced and well loved actors and as expected are the standouts in this film, especially Tucci who adds some great moments of comic relief which helped me stay awake during a painfully long finale.
Yes, painfully long you read that correctly, this is a 2 and a half hour film after all. Now I have no issues with long films BUT they have to do enough to keep the audience’s attention. You can’t just keep a film running with robot fight after robot fight, it needs more! The last 30/40 minutes of this film had me checking the time just hoping it was nearly over and that’s just not good enough from a summer blockbuster.
Transformers: Age of Extinction does have a few things going for it such as the performances of Tucci, Wahlberg and Grammer but it sadly proves to be one movie too many in this franchise many thought they had seen the end of. If the ending of this film is anything to go by we are in for at least one more Michael Bay smash fest, let’s just hope it’s a little shorter next time.
2/5
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