Spoilers abound Folks...Seriously.
Transformers Age of Extinction is exactly what you would expect. A huge blow em up, shoot everyone, run run run type of movie again. Bay tries so hard to separate this from the other Transformer movies, like the theme music we're all used to is gone, the beginning title sequence is different, even the 'feel' of the movie is different. There's also lots of light flares (thanks JJ Abrams) and various liquids 'getting all over the screen' for extra added effect. But this entry also has a TON of cussing and a bunch of on screen human deaths. A darker tone indeed.
The only down side is that now those 'totally awesome looking robots' we all came to love in the first movies now look SO fake and computer generated that it hurts to look at it. I doubt ANYTHING in that movie was real. It all had a 'cartoon-ish CGI' feel to it. Almost like 'What kind of robots can we make and how can they destroy a city or each other' and the script and heart of the story went out the window.
Bay even tries to throw Mark Wahlberg, his daughter and her boyfriend in as the humans we should care about, but we're introduced to them then thrown into the action so quickly that we don't really relate to them or care about them like we did Sam Witwicky from the first trilogy, we only care about the situations they are in. New 'eye candy' Nicola Peltz is Wahlbergs daughter (which is not believable AT ALL, not even for a second) who couldn't act her way out of the the short short daisy dukes she squeezed into. Is it THIS hard to find a hot chick who can ALSO act Mr. Bay? Or here's an idea, make the movie about ROBOTS and forget the Victoria's Secret models all together. I don't think the 7 year olds this movie is geared towards will mind at all.
This movie had a few problems and if you will humor me for a moment....
1-ALL Asians know karate and will jump into Kung-Fu at any time. Even if they have no idea why the fight is going on, they just jump in at random. Fact.
2-Women (no matter how strong or how much of a 'ball buster' they appear as at first) are only good for wearing short shorts and revealing clothes while crying and screaming as they are holding on for dear life waiting for the male hero to save them.
3-Even with Decpticons all over, the GOVERNMENT is the REAL bad guy. ALWAYS.
4-Any time Michael Bay holds an audition for Asians, the role is always running in a crowd from a huge robot rampage while screaming things in Chinese at random.
5-Even if you are just going to the toilet for a second, if the toilet and or entire bathroom does not explode as you walk away, with a chase scene to and from the room, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
6-Seriously, how many times can you kill Megatron then have him come back. When will we learn?
7-The 'comedy relief' sidekick got annoying after the first 5 minutes. Then they had the good sense to kill him off early, but after a quick 'sorry for your loss' this friend of so many years is never thought of or mentioned again.
8-Every 5 minutes it seemed that the action would slow-mo and some Imagine Dragons song would play as Nicola Peltz and her boyfriend Jack Reynor would do something 'romantic'. Umm, there's robots shooting all around, the city is being destroyed and hundreds are dying around you, kiss some other time huh?
9-Dinobots--AWESOME. But they are only in the last 10 minutes of the film, none of them talk or say anything and then Prime 'gives them their freedom'. Excuse me, you transform into a huge T Rex, how are you gonna hide on earth where no one will find you? Good luck with that.
10-Autobot technology is pretty awesome alright, but gets lost really easy by alien robots just to be discovered by us little humans then hidden away where no Autobot or Decpticon would ever find it until we accidentally use it at the last minute and Prime has to save us all. All in a days work I guess.
11-So there's this top secret CIA/evil corporation technology and a hick dude from Texas gets hold of it and hacks into it in 10 minutes with old computer stuff from an abandoned gas station? Really?
I could go on and on but you get the point. Transformers 4 was exactly what it was meant to be - A huge summer movie, but if you're looking for something to make up for Dark of the Moon or a reason to look forward to this 'New trilogy', you're out of luck.
Transformers Age of Extinction is exactly what you would expect. A huge blow em up, shoot everyone, run run run type of movie again. Bay tries so hard to separate this from the other Transformer movies, like the theme music we're all used to is gone, the beginning title sequence is different, even the 'feel' of the movie is different. There's also lots of light flares (thanks JJ Abrams) and various liquids 'getting all over the screen' for extra added effect. But this entry also has a TON of cussing and a bunch of on screen human deaths. A darker tone indeed.
The only down side is that now those 'totally awesome looking robots' we all came to love in the first movies now look SO fake and computer generated that it hurts to look at it. I doubt ANYTHING in that movie was real. It all had a 'cartoon-ish CGI' feel to it. Almost like 'What kind of robots can we make and how can they destroy a city or each other' and the script and heart of the story went out the window.
Bay even tries to throw Mark Wahlberg, his daughter and her boyfriend in as the humans we should care about, but we're introduced to them then thrown into the action so quickly that we don't really relate to them or care about them like we did Sam Witwicky from the first trilogy, we only care about the situations they are in. New 'eye candy' Nicola Peltz is Wahlbergs daughter (which is not believable AT ALL, not even for a second) who couldn't act her way out of the the short short daisy dukes she squeezed into. Is it THIS hard to find a hot chick who can ALSO act Mr. Bay? Or here's an idea, make the movie about ROBOTS and forget the Victoria's Secret models all together. I don't think the 7 year olds this movie is geared towards will mind at all.
This movie had a few problems and if you will humor me for a moment....
1-ALL Asians know karate and will jump into Kung-Fu at any time. Even if they have no idea why the fight is going on, they just jump in at random. Fact.
2-Women (no matter how strong or how much of a 'ball buster' they appear as at first) are only good for wearing short shorts and revealing clothes while crying and screaming as they are holding on for dear life waiting for the male hero to save them.
3-Even with Decpticons all over, the GOVERNMENT is the REAL bad guy. ALWAYS.
4-Any time Michael Bay holds an audition for Asians, the role is always running in a crowd from a huge robot rampage while screaming things in Chinese at random.
5-Even if you are just going to the toilet for a second, if the toilet and or entire bathroom does not explode as you walk away, with a chase scene to and from the room, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.
6-Seriously, how many times can you kill Megatron then have him come back. When will we learn?
7-The 'comedy relief' sidekick got annoying after the first 5 minutes. Then they had the good sense to kill him off early, but after a quick 'sorry for your loss' this friend of so many years is never thought of or mentioned again.
8-Every 5 minutes it seemed that the action would slow-mo and some Imagine Dragons song would play as Nicola Peltz and her boyfriend Jack Reynor would do something 'romantic'. Umm, there's robots shooting all around, the city is being destroyed and hundreds are dying around you, kiss some other time huh?
9-Dinobots--AWESOME. But they are only in the last 10 minutes of the film, none of them talk or say anything and then Prime 'gives them their freedom'. Excuse me, you transform into a huge T Rex, how are you gonna hide on earth where no one will find you? Good luck with that.
10-Autobot technology is pretty awesome alright, but gets lost really easy by alien robots just to be discovered by us little humans then hidden away where no Autobot or Decpticon would ever find it until we accidentally use it at the last minute and Prime has to save us all. All in a days work I guess.
11-So there's this top secret CIA/evil corporation technology and a hick dude from Texas gets hold of it and hacks into it in 10 minutes with old computer stuff from an abandoned gas station? Really?
I could go on and on but you get the point. Transformers 4 was exactly what it was meant to be - A huge summer movie, but if you're looking for something to make up for Dark of the Moon or a reason to look forward to this 'New trilogy', you're out of luck.