Transformers: Age Of Extinction (2014) Review

Several years have passed since a grandiose and destructive battle between the alien races known as the Autobots and the Decepticons ravaged the city of Chicago. Despite the constant defense of humanity, the surviving Autobot units are now being tracked down and destroyed by the Central Intelligence Agency, aided by a new, mysterious transformer named Lockdown. In a small Texas town, a frustrated inventor discovers a rusty and beaten up semi, and takes it in to his barn, hoping that he can disassemble the vehicle and sell the parts in order to help put his daughter through college. The vehicle soon reveals itself to be fabled Autobot leader Optimus Prime, who soon teams with the humble Texans in order to discover the truth behind these huntings, and what involvement the government has.


Oh Transformers, I've had such a strange history with you. I never grew up on your original run in the 1980s, and have still never finished your famed animated motion picture starring the voices of Eric Idle, Orson Welles, and many other respected actors and actresses who were most likely ashamed of having a film about warring giant robots on their acting resumes. Still, given my childhood obsession with all things Dinosaur-related, I loved and adored the concept of the Dinobots, and this lead to one of my favorite animated series and toy lines of the 1990s: Beast Wars, a show that I will still defend to this day, even if its animation is noticeably outdated. In recent memory, I've barely given a pass to your 2007 Michael Bay-helmed relaunch of the same name, though I can not feign enthusiasm for the sequel that you unleashed upon this world. While I skipped your third entry (the rather amusingly titled Dark of the Moon), I figured that a free ticket (thanks to a mixup with the 3D screening of Maleficent) and some available time could be an amusingly dumb way to pass the time, especially since your trailers and television spots highlighted the introduction of said Dinobots…..Alright, enough of this way of speaking.


As eloquent and nostalgic as I may sound above, there are no words that in exist in the human vocabulary to describe what Transformers: Age of Extinction truly is. Off the top of my head, I can think of a small handful within one minute or less: craptacular, shitty, vile, stupid, obnoxious, moronic, and excruciating. You can feel free to tell me more later if you choose to. If it is comparable to an inanimate object, I'd liken it to a birthday cake made entirely out of diarrhea. If you're wondering if the series could sink any lower than the reprehensible, juvenile, and racist Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen, it is difficult to debate. I have been struggling to hold my composure and not type "FUCK THIS MOVIE" repeatedly until I lose consciousness. Alas, I have to try and type something coherent for the small amount of you who read my blog, even if this "movie" is anything but.


Starting off, as far as the non-robotic side of the film goes, I won't spend too much of my valuable minutes talking about the wastes of time and failed creations that they attempt to call "human beings." In recent years, Mark Wahlberg has proved that he can actually step up to the plate when given the right project, but when he's spouting off one-liners and sentences that would make Schwarzenegger cringe, you wouldn't know it. His acting is on par with his now-legendary job in M. Night Shymalan's The Happening, and Shymalan may be relieved to know that he is now free of the dishonor of having concocted and directing Wahlberg's worst performance. Nicola Peltz might be relatively easy on the eyes, but with how quickly she decides to age, her resume declines steadily, and going from The Last Airbender (hey, that's TWO M. Night movie references!) to this is shockingly a downgrade. I also found it slightly creepy that her character is stated to be a mere seventeen years old, and yet the cameras are fixated on as many slow motion sequences and closeup shots as possible, with a stronger emphasis on placing her in rather skimpy jean shorts in the latter half. Director Michael Bay and the three individuals in charge of casting have lifted heavily from the dreaded and lambasted "Big Book of Character Stereotypes." There's the boyfriend with a heart of gold, the tough, older father figure who spends nearly half of the picture arguing with said boyfriend about him dating his daughter (Wahlberg playing Peltz's dad is just plain laughable), the evil scientist with a semblance of a conscience (poor, poor Stanley Tucci), the evil government officials, the smart British scientists, the military douchebag, the sassy, loud black woman, and many more that I couldn't even count on several surrounding hands. It certainly hurts the movie when every surrounding person has to chat and deal exchanges that will only appeal to the lowest common denominator. Its most blatantly offensive depiction comes in the form of the Chinese, who may just attack us after all when T4 opens overseas after this jingoistic piece comes to all areas of the globe. If you're into this type of thinking and find something relatable in these characters, then good for you. Anyone else with no tolerance for this form of laziness will hope that the aforementioned folks are beaten to death with barbed wire baseball bats.


One of my biggest complaints about the Bay-formers pictures lies in the fact that once out of vehicle mode, you can barely tell most of the Autobots and Decepticons apart from one another, since they all just look like giant, metallic messes with the occasional different color scheme (this is especially true for the second film in this franchise). True, if they had used a majority of the designs from the original series, it would have looked even sillier, but it's bothersome nonetheless. In this entry, Michael Bay and his team of helper monkeys with thinking caps have done a fairly commendable job of making most of the Autobots look distinctive, but it comes with a small price. For once we meet his merry group of mechanical minions, they are either painful stereotypes or irritating eyesores. There's the Japanese samurai (who they were kind enough to give squinty, slanty eyes), the gruff army commander (sadly voiced by John Goodman), the rogue, English bad ass who won't say no to a fight, Brains, a miniature robot who can transform into a Notebook when not imitating an older, jive African American, and Bumblebee. Yes, I forgot that he had such a prominent role since the first film and onward, and that for some reason, they decided to re-scramble his voice box after it was fixed at the end of the original Transformers (which leads to a scene with M.C. Hammer's "Can't Touch This" that almost made me walk out of the theater). And before you say anything, yes, I did touch on stereotyping in my previously-written paragraph not even two minutes ago. While I applaud your decision to pay attention, Michael Bay doesn't give a damn about what you think. He has to ruin all of which is involved with Age of Extinction, especially with what you paid to see. The action sequences, despite being flashy and relentless, lack a certain amount of soul to them, especially after the bar has been set so high within the first six months of this year. Even more depressing is the manner in which he portrays the MacGuffinbots, who seem to have suddenly taken over the bodies of my beloved Dinbots. Admittedly, I do admire the redesigns that they went with (until they transform out of their beast modes), but every single one of them serves absolutely no purpose in this picture and could have been replaced with literally any other character, be it Transformer or human. I wouldn't be shocked if they decide to shoehorn characters from Beast Wars or the rather massive being known as Unicron into the fifth motion picture solely for the hell of it.


Speaking of shoehorning, I haven't seen this much blatant product placement in a movie since….well, ever. I'm not oblivious to the fact that you have to make your money back somehow and promote this latest entry to those outside of your general Trapt and Avenged Sevenfold-listening crowds, but was there really a need to have multiple, BLATANT shots. mentions, and advertisements for Bud Light, Beats Electronics, My Little Pony, and Red Bull? It doesn't take a genius or anyone with even the slightest bit of legitimacy in the movie reviewing business to see that this is shameless on the part of the director and Paramount Pictures. Age Of Extinction clocks in at nearly three hours long, and given it's meandering and attempt at character development (notice that I said "attempt"), this length feels more like a chore to sit through, and it will cause several patrons to check their watches or cellular phones to see when the whole experience will finally be over. Whether this is due to prior obligations or just plain boredom I'm not quite sure, but either are acceptable answers. Bay also has the audacity to lift and steal from superior projects released in the last decade, including The Matrix (the mercenary Lockdown is poor man's cross between Agent Smith and Elysium's Kruger), The Avengers, and both of director Neill Blomkamp's full-length science fiction epics. Initially, I didn't want to jump to conclusions and call the man a hack, but he leaps into this category with gusto and not a care in the world, further establishing himself as the Maxim Magazine of Hollywood blockbusters.


Transformers: Age of Extinction holds the (now) distinct honor of making me question everything that I'm doing with this hobby. Mind you, it isn't in some sort of philosophical or existential kind of way, but more in a "stop spending your money, be it free, earned, or stolen on utter garbage" kind of way. If I see a motion picture worse than what I just suffered through any time this year, I may have to duct tape a shotgun to my head and blow my brains out. If this leads to an influx of more toy lines being adapted to film, or worse, a pentalogy (Extinction ends on a cliffhanger coupled with dialogue that makes some of the writing for WWE resemble the work of William Shakespeare), then I'll strap a bomb to my chest, board a flight to California, take acid, and run into the nearest movie studio that I can find. In fact, for those of you taking the time to read this: if you encounter any living person who says that they genuinely and/or enthusiastically enjoyed Transformers: Age of Extinction more than any other recent releases, please hit them in the head with a large rock and throw them into a river. The human race will be better off without these mouth-breathing knuckle-draggers around.




Or just stab them repeatedly. Either way works fine.