Movie Review - Transformers 4 : Age Of Extinction (spoilers)

[Joshy]

Well, be prepared to be continuously disappointed mate.

Such is life

[Lord_Zed]

"I think we found a Transfor-mah!"

And yet still the second best of the Bay movies. I think the first one really nailed the narrative with the whole Americana "boy and his car" idea.

The first one in that it actually had a narrative you mean?
Since then not so much. I suppose I did kind of like how AOE has a sort of friendship form between Prime and Cade, however that also makes Bumblebee superfluous now as he's no longer the main characters buddy bot, just an annoying childish robot who almost ruins an undercover op with his antics.

This.

Did what it was originally designed to do... made me want to buy the toys

I'm almost tempted given they got some established talent to give the Autobots "some" personality this time, but alas the decline in Hasbro's toy quality has me unwilling to risk it.

[i_amtrunks]

I stayed away from everything movie related this time around. I've only just been able to watch tf4 tonight, and I'd only had a few word of mouth review from non tf fan friends who said it was brainless.

Needless to say my expectations were low, as I hadn't enjoyed the previous films much, but the trailers made it look okay.
My lowered expectations were not met.

This is one of the worst films I have ever subjected my eyes and brain to. It was completely flawed. I saw it at the drive in at Blacktown, and it very nearly became the first movie I ever left before the credits.

I have 7 year olds in my class that could throw together a more coherent and interesting plot and well rounded characters than the tripe we were subjected to. Things mostly happen in this film because the script says so. Bay cannot be blamed for these downfalls, they fall to the writers and producers.

What Bay can be blamed for are the awful time jumps in the mostly human centric chase scenes. I like a good car chaser, but in so transformers flick I want to see the transformers changing and fighting as they go, not a crapbox full of humans getting shot at by other humans. There are hundreds, if not thousands of other movies to see that kind of thing. He can also be blamed for the sexist and stereotyped way actors are portrayed and the terrible shot selection that makes trying to follow the "action" very difficult.

For an advertisement that expensive, there sure were a lot of cut corners with the fights and transformations. Too much money spent on explosions and dust to hide the other special effects. The last fight between Prime and Lockdown looked in parts to be claymation, such was the drop in frame rate and quality. Other scenes looked awful, like the tightrope and the dogs.

I have numerous issues and gripes regarding plot holes, length, overuse of humans and all their stupidity, terrible acting, bad animation, boredom, lack of explanations about very much everything, but most of those have been discussed or raised by others.

As I said, I wanted to drive out, but the missus encouraged me to stay, although she was unimpressed by Prime's un Prime like behaviour and by te fact that the Autobots as a unit were mostly nasty little turds, that acting more like bad guys, with their in fighting and wanky behaviours (especially Bumblebee). Her knowledge of tf is the movies and snippets of things, so if it turned her off, I imagine it would have done the same to many parents and casual fans too.

I'd like to know how many millions Kelsey Grammar and Stanley Tucci we're paid to appear in this absolute piece of crap. They were the only two actors (including voice actors, Goodman and DiMaggio both sounded bored) that were decent and nuanced, the rest might as well have been cardboard cutouts. I have never wanted the main cast to be hunted down with extreme prejudice as much as I have in this film. I wanted grammar character to succeed.

While I liked Lockdown, you could not really mess him up as long as you went with his TF:A persona. Ratchets death was sad and upsetting (as it was intended) but the terrible prehistoric sectin and everything post Ratchets death was a waste of time. Giving more than half a second to each Autobots helped give them some character, too bad that I took them 4 movies to finally get it right. Also too bad we didn't get to see the other robots from tf3, I know they need to sell new toys, but having seemingly new and random characters every movie that are just there with no explanation is lazy.

I came out of this film feeling like I need a sabbatical away from transformers if this is the future direction of the franchise. At the moment, the only thing keeping me loosely hanging onto the brand are the comics. It staggers me that we can get something like MtMtE and this piece of absolute garbage out at the same time with the same general target audience.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I keep catching bits of it at work and I have one real problem...

Lockdown's bottom.

It's just freakishly toned. And the design is so slender I just seem to think of him as a dude walking around naked...\

ANother LD point. I remember Bay saying there'd be no mass shifting for TFs in the movie (ignoring the decpticlones here I guess) but LD makes a much bigger robot than I think the car allows for.


As I've had some time to stew on the movie as a whole, I've decided that if this were a movie featuring other robots, let's just call it "Gundam 4, Age of Extinction" for the sake of argument. I would think it's a pile of turds and like trunks, would have left before the end.

The others I managed to find some enjoyment in. This one was just awful. Which is a shame as I actually quite like the start, up to the point Optimus meets with the other Autobots. Then it just goes downhill so far that it makes me forget about the good bit.

Plus I was glad lucas died. Crap acting, one point he is looking around, and looks at 3 people, (looks like one's off screen and yet there is only Cade and the girl there), ANd he was an annoying character. not even remotely funny. Would have like to see Optimus kill that guy too, but Lockdown beat him to it.

[SharkyMcShark]

I'm with Trunks.

I keep catching bits of it at work and I have one real problem...

Lockdown's bottom.

It's just freakishly toned. And the design is so slender I just seem to think of him as a dude walking around naked...\

I was very much reminded by Lockdown of Splinter Cell's Sam Fisher back when he used to wear the skin tight Navy Seal stuff.

[GoktimusPrime]

I think that Lockdown is somewhat "stretched out" to achieve that height relative to the size of his alt mode, hence the slenderness of his body and tight bottom. I'm also might glad that Lucas was brutally killed. He was such a Ryan Reynolds Wannabe.

[SkyWarp91]

I keep catching bits of it at work and I have one real problem...

Lockdown's bottom.

Stupid Sexy Flanders

[kup]

I also went in with very low expectations and actually questioning why I was going to watch it despite knowing exactly what we would get since this is Michael Bay.

However I guess a bit of disappointment hit me worse than it should because during the first part of it, I actually begun to think that the movie wasn't that bad and was starting to get into it. I hate the designs but the way Lockdown was first handled and Marky Mark and the human characters were not great but a lot better than Shia and pals. Still way below average but not an abomination like the last two movies have been.

At that point I was actually thinking that perhaps this movie was being treated unfairly but then the Autobots show up in the desert and things begun to deteriorate quickly. I already had a hint that it would be bad as Ratchet's 'getting killed' voice acting was terrible with 'Look at me, I am a getting horribly killed, meh oh well' tone of voice. Why do the Autobots behave like thugs with such shoddy voice acting? It was cringe worthy to have them interact with each other on screen. John Goodman Hound was also goofy as hell and difficult to digest outside of a little kid's movie.

Then the Steve Jobs guy went from a seemingly ruthless amoral corporate character to 'the goofy guy' just because Marky Mark gave him a phone call. WTF?

There is a lot more to list but I am sure it has been brought up by everyone everywhere already as things deteriorated very quickly. Narrative and visual sense went completely out the window, specially in the last 20 minutes. The movie was also too long so the last 40 minutes or so was just an endurance test. I was glad when it was over because by the end, I was bored.

I would say that it's not as terrible as ROTF but it is at least as bad as the previous one despite the human cast being better and an absence of toilet humor. However as the days past, I am disliking it more and more so perhaps it may actually be worse than Dark of the Moon.

Terrible movie and it is really sad that a piece of trash like that can make so much money the fourth time around. For the record, it had already made it's money by the time I saw it so damage was already done.

You know what the sad thing about this will be? It only helps to continue the lowering of the bar when it comes to Hollywood and audience expectations.

[GoktimusPrime]

You know what the sad thing about this will be? It only helps to continue the lowering of the bar when it comes to Hollywood and audience expectations.

^This.

I've been reading a lot of people who attempt to defend this movie with the basic argument of, "just lower your standards," which really isn't a defence at all (although not as bad as the mother of all terrible rebuttals, "haters gonna hate" -- might as well just say, "I got nothin'." ). The better defenders are the ones who highlight the actual merits of the film rather than pleading with critics to dumb themselves down. Because of course everything is better if you don't have standards! Maccas is totally nutritionally beneficial if you just lower your expectations of good nutrition.

P.S.: Penny Arcade & Transformium

[kup]

^This.

I've been reading a lot of people who attempt to defend this movie with the basic argument of, "just lower your standards," which really isn't a defence at all (although not as bad as the mother of all terrible rebuttals, "haters gonna hate" -- might as well just say, "I got nothin'." ). The better defenders are the ones who highlight the actual merits of the film rather than pleading with critics to dumb themselves down. Because of course everything is better if you don't have standards! Maccas is totally nutritionally beneficial if you just lower your expectations of good nutrition.

P.S.: Penny Arcade & Transformium

Transformium is low on the list of things that offend in this movie. It's kinda how medichlorians got surpassed by much greater nonsense in the prequels than caused a lot more anger.