'Transformers:Age of Extinction' Review

Transformers: Age of Extinction Review:

Fourth Time’s the Charm?

BY IAN TAN

The fourth installment in the Transformers franchise takes place 4 years after the Battle of Chicago that occurred in the franchise’s last entry, Dark of the Moon, and deals largely with the aftermath of the battle and how humans have now developed a sense of robo-phobia (queue Pat Novak rant) towards our shape-shifting characters, whether Autobot or Decepticon. Operated by cunning and ruthless Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) and led by James Savoy (Titus Welliver), project "Cemetery Wind" aims to rid Earth of all Transformers for good, in order to claim Earth back to humans. Enter Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a struggling inventor who, in the midst of trying to keep his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) from the dangers of high school boys, stumbles upon a truck very similar to G1 (Generation 1, the very first) Optimus Prime. "Cemetery Wind" quickly gets eyes on this and the hunt is on. This time however, Optimus and the Autobots aren’t as willing to help our fellow human protagonists, given humanity’s attempt at the genocide of his Autobot brethren despite them having saved the world three times over. Adding to the conflict is Lockdown, an alien bounty hunter on the hunt for a very specific target on Earth.

As far as Transformers film’s go, this is probably one of the better entries in the series. I am going to openly say that I enjoyed this film for the most part, given the amount of hate critics and certain audiences have been hitting this film with. After the awesome eye-opener that was the first Transformers in 2007, I was deeply excited for its sequel, Revenge of The Fallen (2009), only to be disappointed with it due to its sheer lack of character development for its robot characters and a villain that is constantly said to be ancient and all-powerful but comes off as more of an undernourished and underdeveloped villain that brought the film down. Two years later (2011), Dark of the Moon was released and restored some of my hope for the franchise, delivering a much improved villain in the form of (SPOILER, if you haven’t seen Dark of the Moon) Sentinel Prime and showering audiences with some of the best action ever put to screen. Besides Sentinel Prime however, neither of the other ‘bots had much in terms of personality and character development. So, given a string of bad to mediocre sequels, how does Michael Bay fare this time round with Age of Extinction?

Thankfully, Age of Extinction provides audiences the best parts of the franchise. Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager proves to be a more believable and likable lead over Shia LaBeouf’s stuttering Sam Witwicky, and helps give this fourth installment some gravitas and a breath of fresh air. The whole father-daughter element that serves as the core of the human story is well set up in the first act of the movie, allowing us some time to get to know our human protagonists. Unfortunately, this aspect of the human story starts losing its steam, and our interest, as the film progresses, shifting the focus more towards inventor Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci) and his involvement in the overall plot. Tucci in my opinion, has the best and arguably most interesting human character of the bunch, and gives a lot to the film. It is unfortunate, however, that the movie struggles to find ways to engage us in the whole Tessa, Shane (Jack Reynor) and Cade sub-plot. There are scenes that suggest some neat dynamics between the characters, but they are overlooked by an unfortunate lack of screen time for Shane’s character and a blunt performance by Irish actor Jack Reynor.

Enough talk about humans. We’re all here for the titular robots aren’t we? And boy, this movie surpassed by expectations on just how deep into the Transformers mythology it would actually go, especially with the character Lockdown, who’s arguably the franchise’s most interesting and callous villain. His character, and mission, take the Transformers universe into more of a sci-fi territory, which ultimately benefits the franchise, as we’re all tired of the continuous repetition and involvement of the Great War on Cybertron in the previous films’ plots. Besides that, Transformers fans will be pleased that this time round, the Autobots actually have distinguishable personalities and looks (finally!). Also, Optimus here has more of a story and purpose here compared to the previous two movies, which is a welcome improvement as well. Autobots Hound (John Goodman) and Crosshairs (John DiMaggio) are likely to be new fan-favourites, next to Ken Watanabe’s Drift. On the other hand, the Dinobots are not given as much screen time as one might expect judging by how much they appear in the film’s marketing, but whenever they are on screen, they are a joy to look at and add something new to the action.

Speaking of action, this movie is relentless, mind-numbing almost. After the Battle of Chicago in Dark of the Moon, there really isn’t much Bay and co. can do to top it, and any attempt at doing so would feel a tad excessive, and that’s kind of what the action in Age of Extinction feels like. Don’t get me wrong, the action is spectacular. A standout is a very roller-coaster like spaceship chase sequence in Chicago with Tessa, Shane, Cade, Bumblebee and Crosshairs. There is also a pretty neat car chase in the first quarter of the film that levels best of Fast and Furious. However, one can only handle so much spectacle, and at times the action can be a wee bit overwhelming. A number of extended scenes toward the climax involving Hound could have easily been left on the cutting room floor in favour of some compelling scenes of human drama. The opportunity was there for the editors and Bay to take it, but they didn’t, leaving the more intimate scenes of Tessa and Shane, and their character development to be thrown out the window. This could have very well helped in the human drama department and make the action more intense, but alas, the poor editing choices made me want to take a breather from all the uncompromising action. The final showdown however, was perfect. Now that scene had good human and robot emotion to drive it, and ultimately made it work as one of the most satisfying Transformers battle climaxes. Oh, and IMAX 3D is a must for this one, considering that the film was shot specifically for the large screen format with IMAX 3D cameras. The full size of the IMAX screen definitely sells the scope and scale of the action and robot characters and is definitely the way to experience this movie. The earth-shattering sound was a great addition as well. 

Overall, Transformers: Age of Extinction, in my opinion at least, does more good than bad. Human drama aside, it smartly expands the mythology of the Transformers universe and introduces us to new fan-favourite characters while delivering some spectacular 3D action, even if the action can get a bit self-indulgent at times. If I were to rank this film among the others, this would probably be the series’ second best, with the first Transformers taking the top spot, Dark of the Moon at the third, and Revenge of the Fallen at the bottom of the list.

Final Rating
Transformers: Age of Extinction gets 7.3 stars out of 10 - Pretty Okay.