Transformers: Age of Extinction (review)

I was out the exact moment the credits started rolling. Almost running. After X-Men, which was frankly the worst movie i have seen this year, along came the most stupid one. Like incredibly stupid. Oh yes, it will make a billion $ probably as usual. It's mind-boggling. But it was funny in some ways too.
Of course, i am talking about the latest entry in the Transformers saga by master Michael Bay. Did i mention this is 165 minutes long?

At least i took a cool photo!

I am not sure what is worse. The shittiest director in history? The worst supporting female actress ever? The destruction of a childhood dream of mine about a good Transformers movie that had the fearsome Dinobots? Oh, i think i do. It's the fact that this movie is the first chapter in a new trilogy of slow-motion explosion filled franchise. And that i am not sure if it worse than Revenge of the Fallen.

Soooo, ladies and gentlemen. This is another of my favorable reviews, full of sarcasm, personal opinion, anger and laughter. Let's get to it!

Where to start? Jesus. The plot seems written by a 10 year old that anytime he was stuck he just used his imagination to escape. Inconsistent, weird plot full of holes and questions, stupidity, bad acting, sexism, patriotism, explosions, slow-motion, explosions, slow-motion, explo....you get the idea.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD

So the movie begins in the era of the dinosaurs, around 65 million years ago. They are happily living and chewing other creatures when giant space ships drop bombs and vaporize them. Fast forward to the present age and we have a cute blonde scientist as it is custom in a Bay movie. Who did you expect? Jocelyn Wildenstein? She arrives in the arctic to look at some strange finding that turns out to be a metallic dinosaur frozen in the ice. This sets up the plot for the bad guys to take over.

Then we get a glimpse of the bad guys and Lockdown, who are hunting down every Autobot and Decepticon for their evil scheme. They also kill a particular likeable green Autobot, which is sad and has the required 15 second slow-motions every other second.

Now we are in Texas. Texas in the United States of America, not another place huh? Get it? Or should i use more american flags next time? This movie should be rated RPG (Really Patriotic Garbage).

They were everywhere.

Like seriously, everywhere. Reminds me of Jack Howitzer from the Grand Theft Auto series.

"I'm an american, and you are not, so f@%king dieeee!"

Taking this in consideration it is funny how the main character, Cade Yeager (played by Mark Walhberg) is more concerned about his teenage 17-year old daughter not dating boys and protecting her virginity rather than protecting the land from alien robots.

So the location now is Texas, where an ambitious but utterly unsuccessful inventor meets up with a surfer annoying dude called Lucas (i think?) that helps him buy junk from an old theater. The sexism is clear as two pretty hot ladies pass by the road and Lucas says some fine lines to them. Also, in the theater there is a quote about loads of unneeded sequels. "Cough" tranformers, "cough" michael bay.

Here is where it becomes interesting. Inside the theater there is an old beaten, totaled old truck. That happens to be Optimus Prime for those of you who are slow. He finds rocket shells inside and buys the truck for 150$. He takes it back to his barn, his daughter shows up in the smallest jean shorts ever created, lectures him for buying junk and fails to get financial aid for her college studies, since they are broke and about to be evicted.

Cade the inventor soon realizes that the truck is Optimus Prime and in the blink of an eye fixes him before the baddies can get there to threaten him and his daughter Tessa. This scene is so funny, because in all those films you get the feeling that if you ever encounter an FBI agent, he will look badass and don a massive overcoat, have sunglasses and a tough accent. Like the Matrix i guess. Idiotic. Michael Bay, you are an ignorant baboon.

What the...? He also sounds like he is the son of Darth Vader, huffing and puffing.

So James Savoy (Titus Welliver) plays the thug that comes to the farm to threaten the family to reveal Prime's location. Of course Prime comes to the rescue, as well as Tessa's boyfriend Shane (Nicola Peltz and some guy) in a racing car. He is irish but lived in Texas and is a race driver. Legit.

Fight ensues, Lockdown chases Prime, the thugs chase Yeager and the others, slow-mo and explosion, boom boom everywhere and it ends up in the incineration of Lucas (i challenge you to remember who that guy is) and them escaping to a gas station. Lockdown morphs into a sexy looking Lamborghini Huracan by the way.

Optimus gathers the remaining Autobots, takes the shape of an admitedly cool looking truck and they start to plan their revenge. They visit the bad guys, destroy the lab where they keep the "transformium", the material from which the robots are made and the plan is crystal clear. The bad CIA sadists want to make robots of their own to "protect and serve" the country.

Then they move to China, for obvious marketing reasons, Prime gets captured by Lockdown after we see Galvatron into action, who is Megatron in disguise after he infected the prototype with his head (.........). The others free him, Galvatron is loose trying to get his hands on the seed, a bomb that can lay waste to an entire city and turn them into transformium.

Optimus releases the Dinobots, beats down Grimlock easily, rides him and the last explosion slow-mo battle begins. In the end the good guys win, Prime flies into space and the Dino's run happily into the horizon.

They look pretty nice at least.

That's it. I can't give more spoilers otherwise it would take me 30 pages to write everything.

 Age of Extinction is a barrage of nonsence, non-ethical decisions, sexism, patriotism and noise. You don't care who wins, you just want it to end. I did enjoy some of the fights but a 3 hour movie on 3D glasses is not the idea experience. God help us all, for there are at least 2 more movies coming.

The movie is not as aggressively idiotic as Revenge of the Fallen, but has it's own flaws.

How about the acting and the casting?

I don't like Mark Walhberg much. He had some nice films, but i lost respect after The Happening. Really? An inventor? He should stick to shooting things and playing with Ted. It's like asking Keanu Reaves to have an expression! Not only that, he suddenly turns into an action hero, a master marksman and a great martial artist as he pushes the leading thug into his doom. A man with no experience defeating in hand-to-hand combat a veteran assassin. Plausible.

Now my favorite part about Bay movies. Girls in only tank tops and short skirts or shorts. This talentless little actress Nicola Peltz is getting on my nerves. She is worse than Dark of the Moon's blondie, whom i forgot her name. Her boyfriend pulls out a "Romeo and Juliet" Texan law that is actually pretty funny. A guy walking with a free-from-jail rape card like in Monopoly. The role she has to play does not help either. Stick to modeling please. I was so infuriated by her that i did this today:

Leniency at it's best.

Her boyfriend is the same as the bad-turned good leader of the science company that makes the custom transformers except from the fact that he is muscular. He is your average bad acting Twilight chump but they take their characters to another level. They scream in agony like sissy girls and they probably like to do the chacha like in Bruce Almighty.

The acting is despiriting, the movie draining, the script boring and generic. There are loads of action scenes that are enjoyable but fairly predictable, while you get the feeling you have seen them in the previous movies. The thing that annoyed me the most was the over-usage of slow-mo. It was literally everywhere.

Then there is the commercialism and marketing. Patriotism, Chevrolet's, very expensive cars, a try to rebirth the Camaro and my favorite, that takes commercials in movies to another level. They destroy a truck that has some Bud Light, then Walhberg opens it and drinks. Nice.

See how i haven't talked yet about the robots? There is not much to tell. The first movie was likeable because there was a connection, a bond between a nerdie boy and an alien car. Now there is none, there is only revenge. Optimus is a man on a mission and he just commands the others. There is no connection and you do not care what happens to them. Galvatron is absent. Lockdown has a couple of nice scenes. But that's it.

I m summing up because i m tired and i have russian class.

Plot: 3/10

Acting: 1/10

Sound: 10/10

Visuals: 10/10

Fight Choreography: 7/10

Overall: 3/10

Avoid this movie like a plague. See it at home when you have 3 hours of insomnia. If you want to see a movie with tons of explosions, jailbait buttshots, hot women, bad script and marketing, be my guest. All you will get is a threat of a sequel and a massive headache.