TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (review)

Review by Elizabeth Robbins

The Transformers has a special place in my heart. I watched the cartoon as a kid.

My first serious date with my now husband was viewing Transformers: The Movie.

I was pretty psyched when Michael Bay first started making the Transformers films.

Explosions + robots has to = good, right?

Oh, Michael Bay, what have you done?

Transformers: Age of Extinction is the latest installment in the Transformers franchise, and although better than it’s predecessors, that continues to miss the mark.

For starters it’s 165 minute running time is about an hour too long. If you need that long to establish and develop your characters, then you need a better script. It’s too bad really because the actually story is a cool idea, it was just poorly executed.

Mark Walhberg plays Texan (Yeah, think about that one for a moment and let it sink in. All I am going to say is, “Transformah!”) Cade Yeager, an unemployed inventor and single dad trying to raise teenager, Tessa (Nicola Peltz, Bates Motel). Cade discovers fugitive, Optimus Prime, and he, Tessa, and Tessa’s boyfriend, Shane (played by Jack Reynor, Delivery Man) become caught in between the humans and the Transformers.

 I felt nothing but annoyance for any of the human protagonists.

Every time one of them was in peril, I was hoping that they would be shot or squished. The ongoing “you’re not good enough for my daughter” banter between Cade and Shane is tedious. Peltz’s Tessa is interchangeable with any of Bay’s previous Transformers leading ladies and contributes nothing to the film but another female in too much make-up and high heals that tries to be an independent woman, but really is only there to look pretty and be saved.

Kelsey Grammer and Titus Welliver play perfectly typical government agents with alternative motives. Together with Stanely Tucci as the scene-stealing corporate mogul, they rain hell down on Cade’s people. You almost wish they would succeed. Then we would be left with just them and Transformers. That would have made a good film.

But aren’t you going to talk about the robots?

Sorry, Michael Bay made me wait 45 mins before any decent robot actions, so unfortunately, you had to wait for them too.

Eventually, you do get to the robots, and I won’t lie, those parts ROCK. The fight scenes between the Transformers are excellent and well-choreographed. The new Transformers designs are beautiful.

Peter Cullen returns to give life to Optimus Prime. He is joined by the unlikely John Goodman and Ken Wantanabe, as well as John DiMaggio to round out Autobots. The new bad-guy, alien robots are interesting and could have the potential to lead to all alien robot story.

And, as always, Michael Bay blows stuff up real pur-dee.

The thing is, I wish Michael Bay would stop trying to put drama into his blockbusters. His strength is action. Very few directors do it better. The minute he tries to be more Spielbergian in his storytelling, the story stalls. I want more Bad Boys/ The Rock with my Transformers, not Pearl Harbor.

Ultimately, I’d say wait for DVD. Then you can scan through to the good stuff.