Transformers: Age of Extinction

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
  Transformers:  Age of Extinction
Released 6/27/14

Michael Bay's fourth installment of the highly successful Transformers franchise thunders its way into theaters this weekend.  Bay, long known for being a director who favors style over substance, isn't a favorite among critics, and, as follows, his Transformers franchise has suffered the same fate.  But, no one can fault the gobs of cash these CGI spectacles draw.  Age of Extinction should be no different.  As for quality, while I've always liked the series as a whole, even I have to admit the quality of story has declined since the first movie was released in 2007. 

The beginning of the film furthers the Transformers mythos by verifying the robots' "Creators"  came to Earth millions of years ago during period when dinosaurs still roamed the planet.  The purpose was to "terra-form" the Earth into a mechanical world.  It's a concept that will be a catalyst for the film's ending.  This process caused the extinction of the entire species.

Flash forward to the present day a few years after the "Battle of Chicago" that wrecked the city back in the third installment of the franchise.  The time hasn't been kind to Optimus Prime and his Autobots.  Since the near destruction of Chicago, they have been hunted by the U.S. government under the direction of the CIA's Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer).  Under the public pretense of hunting the remaining Decepticons (the Autobots' sworn enemies) on Earth, the CIA has developed an elite hunter/killer group, Cemetery Wind. 

Attinger has an ulterior motive aside from his extreme patriotism.  Working with a Transformer bounty hunter, Lockdown, who claims to work on the behalf of the "Creators", both Attinger and Lockdown are on a desperate hunt for the missing Prime.  Little do they know Optimus has been found by an unlikely source.  Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a struggling robotics inventor in Texas, purchases the deactivated leader after finding Prime in an abandoned theater while the robot is in his transformed semi-truck form.  Hoping to strip the semi down for its parts, Yeager, inadvertently reactivates Optimus who has developed a logical distrust of humans thanks to the ambush that deactivated him and the hunts that have destroyed most of the Autobots remaining on Earth. 

When Attinger is alerted that Prime has been spotted, he sends Cemetery Wind and Lockdown to Texas to acquire him leading to a confluence of events that forces Prime and Yeager to work together to uncover Attinger's endgame.  Optimus is forced to call in the only surviving Autobots (Bumblebee, Drift, Hound, and Crosshairs) in hiding to infiltrate the mega-techno conglomerate, KSI, operating out of Chicago.  KSI has been conducting experiments on slain Transformers under the guidance of its CEO, Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci) who has a nefarious alliance with Attinger.  Unknown to all, an evil presence from the past has been manipulating everyone from behind the scenes for his own sinister reasons. 

After AOE, I can still definitively say, the first Transformers film remains the best of the group.  There are leaps and holes galore here.  Mark Wahlberg as an eccentric, inventive genius doesn't quite work.  He looked much more comfortable when he was shooting Decepticons with an alien gun.  There's just about every family cliché imaginable from Cade's daughter wanting to leave the uneventful, road-to-no where rural life she feels trapped in to the daughter rebelling and dating a guy her father doesn't approve of in the beginning.

 There are plenty of sappy, eye-rolling "rah-rah" moments including one from Optimus Prime himself.  The film is loud, frenetic and an overall full assault on the senses.  Not to mention that it's overlong to a fault.  A good 30 minutes could have easily been trimmed.  Some action sequences just felt like they would never end. 

All of that said, AOE is great, mindless fun.  You know the kind I mean.  It's a perfect Summer spectacle.  While the action sequences can be unbelievably long, they are spectacular.  I defy you to find a more magnificent shot in 2014 than the slow motion transformation of Prime and Bumblebee as they go from car to robot flipping through a semi-trailer and over a bridge while catching/protecting their human allies.  It's an eye-popping standout in a film that is filled with visual eye candy.

And, for those of you nostalgic types, your heart will leap at the introduction of the Dinobots to the series (finally).  Even with a convoluted story about the Dinos being a group of legendary robotic knights being held captive on Lockdown's ship, the 10-year old in me was giddy when I heard Grimlock roar!  For those not familiar, that's the Transformer who becomes a mechanical T-Rex.  And, the sight of a sword-wielding Optimus Prime riding into battle on Grimlock's back left me speechless. 

While the acting is nothing to write home about (and what do you expect from a movie like this), I will note that Kelsey Grammer does make a convincing villain.  It's a far cry from Dr. Frasier Crane.  There's also some great, if somewhat corny, comic relief from John Goodman as the voice of the cigar-chomping Autobot commando, Hound.  The best comic scene comes from Bumblebee getting a monster-seized 'tude when he discovers a man-made Transformer that is supposedly a better version of him.  Classic comedy. 

Transformers:  Age of Extinction is not always a smooth ride, but it's an entertaining one.  Like the other films before, the human element sometimes interferes unnecessarily and serves only to prolong the film with useless, contrived drama. But, for an action junkie, it delivers its share of thrills and robots beating the Hell out of each other.   And, in the end, isn't that why you watch these movies in the first place?

The Dark Lord of the Sith says:

***1/2 stars


Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.