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

[yoshi594]

Yes, and yet Hasbro said they wanted to name him Swoop, but didn't "because the film's two-headed design was considered too great a departure from previous Swoop characters." But they didn't think it was considered too great a departure from previous Strafe characters. Their point does not makes sense.

they can change the name whenever they want. Just look at devastator in TF1.

[GoktimusPrime]

What really amazes me is how many TF fans continue to watch Michael Bays TF movies and tear them apart and say what rubbish they are ?!?!. Are you expecting something to change after all his other movies? Clearly if you disliked his past efforts then you almost certainly wouldn't like this so why go and see it? To be able to complain? Makes no sense to me as an adult.

Hope that they'll improve? (and also because I had the chance to see it twice for free )

And I think there are notable improvements and merits in Age of Extinction, including:

Greater focus on the Transformers instead of humans
I think this was helped by the fact that the military haven't been given a major role, so it falls directly to the Autobots and their human allies to step up as the primary protagonists for the story. In the previous films, it often felt like the Sam and Army Vs. the Decepticons, guest starring the Autobots as the humans' accessories. In AoE it really does feel like the Autobots have taken greater central stage than in previous films. There are still a few moments in AoE that are a bit too human-centric for my liking, but overall I think this was better done. And the humans' story mostly ran concurrently with the Transformers' story. Some people have criticised the motorcycle chase scene in Hong Kong as being too human-centric, and sure, it probably could've been a lot shorter (especially when Joyce is stuck in the lift trying to be funny), but overall I think it's getting better.

Far less crude humour
No robot peeing or humping or farting or dangling their janglies! Some of the stuff between Cade and Shane was annoying though ... but on the whole, the crassness was notably toned down compared to previous films. Bay is very hit and miss when it comes to punctuating action with humour, but I felt that this film had less misses than the others.

Plot
Age of Extinction does attempt to elevate Transformers to another level, introducing humans as enemies and off-world alien scifi elements (re: The Creators). It makes some rather interesting socio-political statements, such as individuality vs authority (Cade & Co. vs Cemetery Wind), moral panic/mass hysteria ("Remember Chicago"), ethics (Galvatron and the Decepticons represent what happens when man's dabbling in forces he doesn't understand turns against him), losing and rediscovering faith (Optimus Prime) etc. Age of Extinction also seeds plot elements for sequels, such as:
* Galvatron is still a threat.
* The Dinobots left to their own devices.
* The Creators; whatever their mysterious agenda is, it involved putting a price on Optimus Prime's head, which in turn put the Earth-bound Autobots and the humans in danger. In order to protect them, Optimus Prime has decided to leave Earth (thus any other mercenaries coming after him won't come to Earth) and confront the Creators directly.
This some cool science fiction s*** right there!

Story
While Age of Extinction does have quite a few problems with loose ends that should've been resolved (e.g. whatever happened to that last stand that the Autobots and Dinobots were making on the bridge? Prime flies?), it does have a much more coherent storyline than ROTF and DOTM. TF1 is still the most coherent of all the live action films, but it's also the simplest (which is also what makes TF1 the best in this franchise -- it was simple but it worked). Age of Extinction takes Transformers to a higher level of story complexity, which is also what ROTF and DOTM attempted to do, but those movies made a big mess in doing so (especially ROTF). Age of Extinction manages to take the story to that level while still relatively maintaining story cohesion.

Characterisation
The live action movies have long been criticised for lacking character development -- that none of the Transformers ever embark on a journey. They remain constant and never changing in their personas (especially Bumblebee). While this is still true for most of the Transformers in Age of Extinction, there is at least one character who did actually go through the Hero's Journey; Optimus Prime. In the beginning of the film, Optimus Prime is broken, not just in a physical sense, but emotionally and spiritually too. His faith in humanity has been absolutely shattered, leaving him to question the beliefs that he once held true. It is through his experiences in the story with Cade Yeager that Prime gradually comes to grip with his feelings of loss, anger, sadness, disappointment, guilt, shame etc., and once again decides to become humanity's altruistic defender as he was before. But it was certainly an arduous journey. And it's also somewhat reminiscent to G1 Optimus Prime's personality in the Marvel Comics, although he never quite slumped that low, but he was riddled with all "dem feels." Yes, Optimus Prime was a lot darker and brutal in this film, but it was all justified considering what had happened and was happening to him. Some people have criticised Prime for killing a human, but I don't have a problem with this. Attinger was holding a gun to Cade's head and was going to kill him. Prime shot Attinger to save Cade. I find it a LOT more morally acceptable than when Prime executed Scavenger in Revenge of the Fallen (as Scavenger was a mortally wounded, defeated and completely defenceless/helpless combatant who wasn't threatening anyone at the time of his demise, the same cannot be said about Attinger). This is the most character development I have ever seen in any Transformer in the live action films.

Age of Extinction has its good and bad points, but those are some of what I think are the better elements of this film.

[jazzcomp]

The 'morphing' effect is definitely unusual, but it makes sense from an in-universe perspective: molecules in transformium are capable of separating and reassembling themselves into multiple shapes and distinct objects, so Galvatron and Stinger reconfigure themselves on a microscopic level - think Reedman from RotF, but the individual pieces are even smaller. The 'traditional' Transformers only use this ability when scanning alternate modes for themselves, since they use larger moving parts when transforming.

The T-1000 is different: it uses nanotechnology in a 'matrix' of liquid metal.

It must be Alchemy - Anything can change to anything Unlimited transformations.

Of course, I know the T-1000 is different.

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

I watched it the other night and enjoyed it for what it is.

What really amazes me is how many TF fans continue to watch Michael Bays TF movies and tear them apart and say what rubbish they are ?!?!. Are you expecting something to change after all his other movies? Clearly if you disliked his past efforts then you almost certainly wouldn't like this so why go and see it? To be able to complain? Makes no sense to me as an adult.

I am expecting something to change.
How do I know how good/bad a film will be unless I go see it? If I don't like it, I have just as much right to say I dislike it as those who say they like it.

While I don't regret seeing it I'd have to say this was a really boring movie, none of the characters were interesting enough to care about.

I do hope Bay is finished with this franchise.

Agreed. I did spend quite a lot of time wondering when the good stuff was going to happen. When it did happen, I wondered why it couldn't have happened sooner.

[SkyWarp91]

Watched it a second time tonight. The writing/plot has matured quite a bit which I found to be very impressive but there's plenty still wrong with the movie - particularly the running time where so much could have been left out to make the experience more concise.

[SharkyMcShark]

Highest grossing movie of 2014, has made more in 4 days than Pacific Rim made in total.

[Omega Metro]

Highest grossing movie of 2014, has made more in 4 days than Pacific Rim made in total.

Brilliant! Well deserved......roll on TF5!

[The_Damned]

Brilliant! Well deserved......roll on TF5!

i agree.

[Defcon]

I am expecting something to change.
How do I know how good/bad a film will be unless I go see it? If I don't like it, I have just as much right to say I dislike it as those who say they like it.

Agreed. I did spend quite a lot of time wondering when the good stuff was going to happen. When it did happen, I wondered why it couldn't have happened sooner.

Yeah agree with your comments. Fair enough to expect change, but unfortunately the director can't seem to go so far as his signature is all over this movie. Your daughter is a Hot teenager!, "honey your shorts are shrinking", shots between the legs over indulgent scenes of destruction, the Hong Kong scene with the ship sucking the objects into the air and then dropping them again, repeat and again, and again. It was overly long.

Also when I was watching the movie, about half way through I started to get worried, I was enjoying it, but where are the dinobots? If I had to pick just one criticism, it would be that the dinobots came in to late. It was their inclusion which dragged me into this movie in the first place.

[Jinto]

Highest grossing movie of 2014, has made more in 4 days than Pacific Rim made in total.

Speaking of; that hole in his chest makes galvatron look like a miniature Gypsy Danger.