Transformers: Age of Extinction

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Titus Welliver, Sophia Myles, TJ Miller, Bingbing Li, Peter Cullen (voice), Frank Welker (voice), John Goodman (voice), Ken Watanabe (voice)
Directed by: Michael Bay
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
2014

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An inventor (Mark Wahlberg) stumbles upon Optimus Prime and gets caught up in the latest battle with enemies of Earth.

Review:

Tim: It's a bit ironic that the last thing I wrote about the Transformers franchise, at the end of Dark of the Moon was that the franchise had started to grow stale and they needed some new blood to reinvigorate the franchise. That's exactly what Michael Bay did, by bringing in an entirely new cast of humans to continue the adventures of the Autobots on Earth. No offense to the new cast, but this franchise needed more than just new blood (so I was partially wrong). While the new human characters were welcome, the franchise as a whole just delivered more of the same, and it's never felt so stale. This movie is where the franchise fatigue really catches up.

I've always been relatively kind to the Transformers franchise. I grew up loving the toys and the nostalgia and the enjoyment of the spectacle mostly made up for the glaring weaknesses of all three films. They were guilty pleasures, but I'd still consider them mostly "good" movies, although heavily flawed ones. With this film, the impact of the spectacle and the specials effects started to wear off and it was even more clear how soulless this franchise has become. This is the likely the worst movie in the franchise, but it's more due to franchise fatigue than anything this movie did. It just had the unfortunate luck of coming fourth.

I do want to mention that I genuinely enjoyed the change-up of the cast. Shia LaBeouf and the gang were certainly fun, but it was time to move on from them. As this franchise has always had the human characters play second fiddle to the giant robot battles, it was fairly easy for them to move on. It felt like an organic continuation of the story, having a new cast of characters come across the Autobots and get caught up in the crazy battles. It felt a little convenient that the Autobots would rely so heavily on humans (why exactly did that matter? Especially with as dangerous as it was for them to be involved at all), but for the most part, it worked. It did genuinely breathe some new life into this franchise and I really enjoyed getting to meet the new characters and see their interactions with the Transformers.

Mark Wahlberg was a good choice for our new protagonist. He's very different from LaBeouf, which was necessary. I liked how the new story wasn't our hero protecting his love interest, but a father protecting his daughter. Yes, it's still relatively close, but I'll take anything new I can get. Wahlberg has enough likeability as an actor to connect well with the audience. Although I'm not exactly excited to see his continued adventures with the Transformers (his story doesn't lend itself as well to sequels as LaBeouf's did), he worked for one film at least. That was a welcome change. Unfortunately, we still needed to have Michael Bay's ridiculous love story, but it happened with secondary characters. Nicola Peltz really adds nothing to the role. She's still fairly inexperienced as an actress, and it showed. I really wish Michael Bay wouldn't cast just for looks- talent is more important. Unfortunately, Peltz is what we had, and she really contributes little in a forgettable performance. Jack Reynor had a few good moments, but his contributes were fairly minimal as well.

The supporting cast was decent, but like the entire cast, they were hampered by the weak script. I really like Stanley Tucci and I appreciate his ability to elevate any role, even one as bad as this one. Kelsey Grammer was a nice addition, but I felt like he had too little to do. His character was too one-dimensional. TJ Miller was a fun addition to the cast, and I really liked his arc in the film. The rest of the cast was decent, but props for using John Goodman and Ken Watanabe as voices of new Transformers.

My biggest issue with this film is how redundant it all felt. We've seen this exact same thing four times now. The Autobots are battling other bad Transformers. Our heroes are caught up in this crazy situation, but risk death and dismemberment because they are contributing in some way. There's destruction on a city-wide scale. This movie delivers more of the same, but hey- there's Dinobots, so it's different, right? Outside of the cast change, any other changes are really cosmetic. The vast majority of this movie is interchangeable with the previous three films. I can deal with some redundancy in a franchise, but man, it felt like we've been down this exact road many times before. That contributed to a lack of excitement in anything I'd seen on screen- it was all just slight variations of things we've seen before This franchise has been criticized for being loud and dumb hundreds of times before, but it was more on display here than any other film.

Transformers: Age of Extinction isn't a terrible movie. It's close to the quality of the other three, but again, this franchise is just losing steam. I thought a new cast would solve the problems, but I'm really thinking that the next change has to be Michael Bay. Bay needs to go, as he's repeating himself too much. This franchise (and it'll definitely continue) needs to find a new director with a different vision for the franchise. If they get someone who'll just follow in Bay's footsteps, then the next movie will be even worse. This franchise needs someone who can change some of the fundamental aspects of this franchise up- that's the only hope it has.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra