Ok, I'm going to just get this out there....it is pretty bad!! I wish I had not paid 13 dollars to see this movie. Most of these Transformers movies, I have been able to just watch them with a stupid popcorn love and enjoy the special effects but so much of the movie gets in the way of that.
Let me explain.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is about extinction of the robots in the fact that the government is now calling all of them aliens and wants them gone from existence. No longer are they heroes but all enemies to humankind. However there is a CEO of a company called KSI played by Stanley Tucci who wants to create his own Transformers. I know I might be leaving out some the plot but who cares. Mark Walberg plays a mechanic who is the replacement for Shia Labeouf and discovers Optimus Prime when the rest are being hunted. I thought maybe just maybe Mark Walberg could save this movie. He is just as annoying as a character as Shia Labeouf was. If anything I liked Shia better in the first and third Transformers movies. The one-liner comedy dialogue in this movie didn't work for me at all!! The movie takes that comedy and transfers it into each character to make it work. It doesn't. First you have this surfer dude character who is a business partner of Mark Walberg's character who you automatically assume is the comic relief of the film. Well when he dies (which is a pretty cool death scene and I thought would be a device that they would play up more), they immediately transfer that comedic role into Mark Walberg. Then halfway through the movie they transfer that comedy character to Stanley Tucci who actually did a better job at it. Some of his one-liners were actually ok. Mark Walberg's character has a daughter in this movie played by Nicola Peltz who i guessed was a replacement for Megan Fox. Not in the sense that she should would be in love with Mark Walberg like Megan was with Shia but I guess to add a female character that would be a damsel in distress to save. Not needed. She was just as annoying as Megan Fox. Back to the death scene of the surfer dude's character. He is killed by a bomb device that the main villain Lockdown attacks with but it isn't used anymore than that one time. It was pretty cool. The device was insinuated that it was used to create the extinction of the dinosaurs but we don't talk about or use it again. Why not?
Now on to the action sequences. Some of them were ok. In the beginning I was thinking this could be good because of the scenes with the new bounty hunter character Lockdown. He was pretty cool! I loved how he transformed into a Lambo and his voice acting was good. The scene where we first see Galvatron in action and where Lockdown captures Optimus Prime was the best for me. Only small clips of this where shown in the trailers but it played out very well. The fact that they introduce Galavtron into this film was pretty cool too!! I didn't expect that at all! The only thing it does is it allows the film franchise to continue. He wasn't the main villain and he didn't really do that much. Michael Bay does his thing where he has tons of lens flares and shoots the entire movie like a music video. It was so bad!!! I was getting blinded by so many lens flares! And why so many low angle shots!! On top of that there was tons of blatant product placement and so many american flags. I understand that the man loves his country but does there have to be a big american flag hanging in every scene. There is a scene with Stanley Tucci's character where he is showing off the technology of the new element called transformium and it transforms into Dr. Dre's BEATS pill audio device. REALLY?!? Then there is a scene where Mark Walberg's character runs into a truck and Bud Light beers fall into the street and he just picks one up and drinks it for no reason!!! REALLY?!? Also I didn't need Mark Walberg fighting in all the scenes. The Transformers are supposed to fight each other and save the day. Not Mark Walberg. The fact that the ending scene had Mark Walberg's character fighting the main villain and not get beaten to a pulp is just stupid!! Optimus Prime gets stabbed in the chest (which is where his spark/soul/heart lives) with his own sword and still gets up and wins. WHAT?!? Why not just have Optimus Prime die in this movie! He died in the Transformers The Movie animated film in the 1980's and it was fine. To add to the ending of this movie, the Dinobots! I was really excited when I found out that Grimlock and the Dinobots were going to be in this movie. However they are only in it for 10-15 mins and they are used wrong! This to me was horrible marketing by the film company. Optimus Prime awakens them so that they can join them in the fight but the way he gets Grimlock to agree is by fighting him for 2 seconds and then mounts him to ride into battle. REALLY?!? And if all the other Transformers can talk how come I couldn't at least hear Grimlock say one of his stupid lines? ME GRIMLOCK!! Something!
One last final point is that this movie is just too long!! There were so many times that it could have ended. We didn't need to go to China. 2 hours and 45 mins of crash, bang, boom! I love action and loud movies as much as the next man but it was a little too loud for me. It looked good. The saturation of the Transformers were very pretty and made it easier to distinguish between the Transformers. The only other thing that I liked about the movie was the introduction of the new Autobots Drift and Crosshairs. They were pretty cool! I'm not a big car fan but I was so wanting to test drive these cars. Drift was an awesome pretty blue Bulgatti which I had no idea what it looked like until I saw this movie. And Crosshairs was an awesome green colored Corvette Stingray. There was also a cool Decepticon called Stinger that transforms into a red and black Pagani Huayra. What ever that is! It had a loud revving sound and was awesome!
Overall, I give this movie 2 stars. If you have to see this movie, rent it from Redbox for $2. It is long and a mess. The only good parts are how the cars looked and the fact they added Galvatron to this franchise. However the way he looked was all wrong! In this movie he transforms into a Optimus Prime truck look-a-like. NO! NO! NO! He is supposed to transform into a gun and at one point a tank. Whatever! I'm supposed to suspend all disbelief and just enjoy this movie but I couldn't. Go see it if you dare!
