My brother and I chanced upon one of the (incredibly) numerous teaser trailers of this movie and got into a semi-intellectual (at least, by our standards) conversation that stemmed from this question: would you watch Transformers 4 because it isTransformers 4 or because of Mark Wahlberg? In the end we’d decided that we’d watch it solely because of the actor than the franchise so you know, we can no longer deny being the Marky-Mark fans that we truly are.
Here’s my round-up of Michael Bay’s (the man who made everything go boom in the Bad Boys movies) fourth installment of the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Please note that there may be spoilers. Read at your own risk.
THE STORY:
It has been four years since the last movie and because of the debacle that happened in Chicago, humans have decided to sever all ties with the Autobots, who are now being hunted down by secret goverment organization Cemetery Wind, headed by Harrold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer – Frasier). The plot gets a little bit more complex because it turns out that Cemetery Wind is in cahoots both with intergalactic bounty hunter Lockdown (Mark Ryan – video game voice actor of Bumblebee) who is on the prowl for Optimus Prime, and K.S.I., an engineering firm determined to rid earth the need for transformers by creating man-made robots. K.S.I.’s leader, Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci – Easy A)’s dream is to recreate the ultimate transformer, Optimus Prime, but has to make do with dissecting the scraps of Megatron instead.
Enter small-time Texas inventor Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg – The Big Hit) who is struggling to not only put food at the table but also to send his only daughter Tessa (Niccola Peltz – The Last Airbender) to college. He unwittingly picks up the heavily damaged Optimus Prime and is now faced with the dilemma of either turning him in to the government and get a reward or help restore the robot that has saved man kind multiple times.
THE GOOD:
- The CGI was, as expected, pretty phenomenal. Michael Bay can probably teach a class about this at this point.
- Stanely Tucci and Kelsey Grammer. I loved how they played off of each other whenever they were in the same scene. You can feel the talent seep out from the edges of the screen. I wasn’ t expecting Stanley Tucci to have such a big role – that was a nice suprise (he’s easily one of my favorite actors) and I didn’t even mind it (a whole lot) that Kelsey Grammer reduced his Beast scenes in X-Men: Days of Future Past because of this movie.
- Mark Wahlberg was definitely a nice addition to the whole franchise and even though I didn’t think it would be possible to have him believably play dad roles, even I must admit that i bought it. I also like his comedic timing, it was very adorable whenever he was playing the insanely overprotective dad.
- That the humans are actively involved in the plot. Unlike in Godzilla where the people always just oh-so-conveniently happen to be where the huge mutated monster is, the people in this movie actually choose to be part of the action.
- There wasn’t much skin shown on screen. Niccola Peltz is smoking hot but I am thankful that there weren’t Megan Fox-esque shots of her.
THE BAD:
- Mark Wahlberg’s ginormous arm muscles if only because I kept thinking that gee, maybe he should lay off the gym equipment and spend more time in his lab. Maybe then he could actually build something worth selling, ‘ya knoe?
- Racist Autobots. I’m all for diversity and shit, but wow if those weren’t offensively cliched stereotypes.
- The stupid angles shot from the ground of people getting out of cars. It has been done to death by Michael Bay and because there were so many, it’s lost its effect of making the characters look heroic. He should probably try to find a new trademark.
THE UGLY:
- That the movie was too damned long. Seriously, there was plot enough here for three more movies. I wish Michael Bay showed a smidge of restraint and took the time to develop each of the sub-plots, because as far as Michael Bay films go, the sub-plots on this film were pretty good (generic, but if handled properly, can make for a pretty good movie material). By the time that it was over, everybody in the cinema was sprinting for the bathroom.
All in all Transformers: Age of Extinction pretty much delivered on what it promised: lots of boom and a pretty thin plot. I know a few people who were more than a little bit disappointed with what they saw but honestly I didn’t know what they were expecting from a Michael Bay film. The Transformers franchise is basically the equivalent of cotton candy: sickly sweet and full of fluff but with no nutritional value whatsoever. But you watch it anyway because of the temporary escapism that it is.
THE VERDICT: 6.2/10. It’s one of those movies that you really do have to see on the big screen to reap the full effects despite ths flimsy story.
*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.
