Movie Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction

The latest installment of Transformers is a movie that has it all. That is if your into robots, explosions, loud blow-ups, more explosions, and a plot that is about as confusing as trying to watch a movie in a foreign language. That’s about the extent of Transformers: Age of Extinction, a movie that will sell plenty of tickets and merchandise, but won’t make it a few weeks in the box office as weak as the storyline and acting is.

Gone from this fourth version are the likes of Shia Labeouf and Megan Fox, who are replaced in the film for the most part by Mark Wahlberg, who plays an inventor from Texas, and his daughter, played (Tessa), played by Nicola Peltz, who takes over as the new sex symbol of the series, wearing low cut shorts and being mostly dolled up for a majority of the movie. Wahlberg is solid, but outside of he and Stanley Tucci, who plays a billionaire scientist who tries to mass produce the robots, the acting is ‘blah’ at best.

The plot is the usual one for a Transformers movie, the Autobots aren’t getting the love from humans anymore after an epic battle in Chicago five years before, and the Deceptions are out to make sure the Autobots are gone for good. This plot has a new villain, known as Lockdown, an alien who is trying to bring main good guy Optimus Prime down for good. The movie is 23 minutes short of three hours, and easily could have been an hour shorter. From starting in Paris, Texas to ending in Hong Kong, the plot is all over the place, and for a good portion of the movie simply doesn’t make sense, nothing new for a Transformers movie done by Michael Bay.

The alien monster’s big agenda is to try and take down Prime. First Lockdown tells Prime that he’s created, which is why he’s trying to destroy him. Good premise, but then why doesn’t he try and destroy the other Transformers left on earth? It’s one of many plot faults in this latest edition of the metal monster flick. Bay could have stopped this franchise after the second movie and it would have been just fine – instead, it’s overkill to the tenth degree.