Reviews»Movies»Transformers: Age…
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Kareem Ali 3.5

Transformers: Age of Extinction

 

  • The good

    Story premise and plot twists are very interesting and characters come off well. Lockdown is pretty dope and loved seeing the Dinobots on the scene.

  • The bad

    Dinobots make an extremely late appearance and a poor introduction. Too long as every scene digresses and story progression halts

  • The ugly

    • Transformers: Age of Extinction is the 4th installment in the Transformers series produced by Paramount Pictures and continues 5 years after the events in Dark of the Moon. It opens up millions of years ago when Earth was inhabited by dinosaurs until an alien spaceship belonging to the Creators arrives launching and detonating seeds that transform the surrounding terrain and dinosaurs into metallic landscapes and creatures, effectively wiping out the dinosaurs. Fast forward to present-day Antarctica and an excavation team uncovers a dinosaur covered in that metal, and clearly it’s a once in a lifetime discovery. However the potential connection to the Transformers is kept hidden because they’re being hunted all over the globe as part of an initiative to wipe out the remaining Decepticons. Well, at least that’s the pretext used to justify the black ops because it’s not just Decepticons being hunted and killed but Autobots too. The CIA black ops hunting Transformers have been looking for Optimus Prime with the help of a mysterious Transformer named Lockdown, who uses his deadly arsenal to finish off their latest victim, Ratchet, since he doesn’t give up Optimus’s location. Optimus hasn’t been seen for some time and this would explain why Cade Yeager, an inventor (played by Mark Wahlberg), would be able to purchase an old-looking truck for cheap since the owner had no clue it was even in that abandoned theater. Cade’s intention was to strip it for parts but he purchased more than he bargained for and he would soon learn that when he would discover his newly purchased truck is an injured Optimus hiding out. Nothing will be the same for Cade and his family once the CIA learns he’s harboring Optimus, who is considered the most dangerous enemy of the state.

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    Coming into this movie I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it but I won’t say that my expectations were terribly high. I loved the first Transformers movie but the quality of the story (and characters) diminished in the next few entries. And I didn’t go into this movie with a bias against Michael Bay because I’ve enjoyed plenty of his movies, and sometimes I’m perplexed at the notion that childhood memories are ruined due to any current movie directed by him but not other movies that are much worse. With that said, the biggest draw for me to see this movie was knowing the Dinobots would be in it, and I have very fond memories of them and not just from the old animated series but the Fall of Cybertron video game as well. So I was pretty excited at the start of this movie when I saw dinosaurs being wiped out or converted because I had hopes they would play a prominent role in the movie. The plot also had an interesting setup with Mark Wahlberg playing an inventor who believes he’s just on the verge of inventing something that would change his fortune, all the while struggling to make ends meet as a single father with his daughter played by Nicola Peltz. I felt Mark Wahlberg did a good job for the most part and was surprised at him playing an inventor but very early on he seemed out of character playing a father. And it’s not because of Nicola’s acting because she did a solid job in the same role that’s in all the Transformers movies but the arrangement seemed very awkward at first. And there was plenty of humor with the addition of their friend T.J. to make this part very enjoyable. So they would unfortunately make the discovery that Autobots were being hunted too, and their lives would be put in jeopardy with the ruthless CIA led by Harold Attinger (played wonderfully by Kelsey Grammar) and the mysterious Lockdown, the most badass new Transformer to date, stopping at nothing to get Optimus Prime.

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    This deal between Lockdown and the CIA was to help Attinger in conjunction with the corporation KSI create their own Transformers that they could control while capturing Optimus Prime for Lockdown, who was working for the Creators. This was an extremely interesting setup especially considering Cade’s family wasn’t too keen on harboring one labeled a terrorist, while Attinger had motives and a deal in place that could threaten everyone. And the demonstrations shown of KSI using a new material called Transformium and what they could do with their technology was very impressive, and the way this was acquired was engrossing. And of course there was plenty of action early on, and seemingly with every scene change, but to me it wasn’t overbearing at this point. And as I’ve stated many times in my reviews, I’m one who can thoroughly enjoy a long movie if it’s well made and engrossing but in the case of Transformers: Age of Extinction the length works against it as it drags out situations that don’t need to be dragged out while pushing close to 3 hours long resulting in the momentum in the story being lost occasionally. And that’s not due to just action sequences but at times the need for every character in a scene to try to one up the other with a witty line during a chase or a search. This would even apply to the Transformers, who thankfully didn’t have any personality as offensive as the two who shall not be named from Revenge of the Fallen. Or the Transformers inexplicably not transporting something much faster than a human counterpart could make a scene turn into another 15 minute chase. And this is unfortunate because the story actually does play out well with some surprise twists that can get you excited all over again before another scene attempts to make you forget that revelation. And for those who have seen the animated movie from the 80s you’ll definitely catch some of the references.

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    And my impatience wasn’t due to the Dinobots being absent the majority of the movie but the feeling that there could have either been 2 movies (maybe to be continued) or the excessive parts in each scene trimmed to make the story progress more smoothly. By the time the movie got to the Dinobots that moment felt like someone said, “oh yeah, by the way, we have Dinobots just lying around that no one noticed or mentioned so far.” And I would have enjoyed their introduction or story being expanded if that meant other parts were condensed. It was a joy to see Grimlock and others fighting on the screen for the first time, and their presence dwarfed the other Autobots. And I always recall a memorable sequence in the first Transformers movie where Starscream landed, fought the Autobots and transformed back into a fighter jet and then proceeded to take out all the other fighter jets in the sky. It’s still one of my favorite scenes as it was the epitome of the beauty of Transformers as the subtle detail could be appreciated over and over in such a flawless scene. There is no scene here that comes close to that and highlights the advantages of being able to transform (Dinobots come close), but the action in the final act comes close to being memorable for its own reasons. I just wish the path to get there was a little more focused.

     

    SUMMARY

    Transformers: Age of Extinction is an overall enjoyable movie that suffers from almost every scene digressing and as a result not fully capitalizing on its engrossing premise and plot twists. The characters are actually more memorable than almost every Transformer, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing except that also means the Dinobots, who were awesome, had a relatively small role. If you didn’t enjoy ANY of the Transformers movies then this one won’t sway you but if you have enjoyed at least one then I would put this as the second best Transformer movie to date.

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  • Rating ( 7 )
  • Total score 7.0

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