Transformers: Age of Extinction

This review may contain spoilers.

It's like Michael Bay started making a really good film and just thought, "Well dang, how am I going to keep this going for another hour and a half?", enter Dinobots...I would give Transformers: Age of Extinction a 6.5/10.

Transformers: Age of Extinction really excelled in it's first half, with displays of good use of music and great plot. I also found this film had some fantastic displays of cinematography and visual effects. The chase scenes were very well done as well as some of the action choreography.

Mark Wahlberg, who plays Cade Yeager, proves that he is indeed what is needed to revive an dying franchise; managing to consistently keep the pace moving throughout the film. Kelsey Grammer, who played Harold Attinger, was a wonderful look into the human villain element and took that particular mantle off of Patrick Dempsey quite nicely. Titus Welliver, who played James Savoy, didn't need a large presence to become one of the most intimidating characters within the film. John Goodman, who voiced The Hound, is one of the more likable Autobots and is best described as the soul of the team. Mark Ryan, who voiced Lockdown, plays one of my favourite Transformer villains to date and does an exceptional job.

However the greatest performance given in this film was Stanley Tucci, who played Joshua Joyce. He incorporated Transformers' tongue in cheek humour with his own spontaneous nature to great effect. But it was his portrayal of a man playing God that I liked, he challenged the Transformers by making his own version and that was an incredible direction.

This movie had so much potential...where on earth did it all go? So halfway into the film they introduced about five different subplots: The Creators of the Transformers, Megatron is back (who's really at all surprised they did that?), Optimus Prime is a knight alongside his super dinosaur robot pals, Stanley Tucci has two love interests and let's not forget the CIA guy now joins the world of hard businessman and retires from the CIA out of nowhere but his CIA lackey joins him for no particular reason. It also failed to answer the history of the past five years very well, particularly Bumblebee's story. The way the dialogue changed angered me also, it went from some powerful speeches about betrayal and evolution to Transformers talking about gathering an army of dinosaurs. The music was almost going to be one of my good things about the film as well but they overused their lyrical pieces, 'War Cry' by Imagine Dragons played THREE times.

Nicola Peltz, who played Tessa Yeager, is a shining example of a Bay directed female protagonist, a damsel in distress with some form of daddy issues or boyfriend troubles of which this film utilised both. Jack Reynor, who played Shane Dyson, started his role as something extraordinary and quite cool before falling to the background and becoming a laughable member of the cast. Sophia Myles, who played Darcy Tirrel, opened this film for no apparent reason, seemed to be Tucci's ex-girlfriend for no apparent reason and was basically in this film for no apparent reason. Bingbing Li, who played Su Yueming, was a background figure who became more prominent when the action moved to China, a fairly racist move and a large heaping amount of too little too late. T.J. Miller, who played Lucas Flannery, gave the wonderful performance of awful comedic relief who betrays his friends for money and dies; to which I say good. Peter Cullen, who voiced Optimus Prime, disappointed me, this is the man who is very famous for his work on prime and he came off as the voice that gives you instructions on reaching your next objective in a video game. Frank Welker, who voiced Galvatron (also known as not so new and improved Megatron), was a substandard replacement and really should be replaced for the fifth film. Ken Watanabe, who played Drift, has done nothing but disappoint me this year, now he's back playing the Japanese racial stereotype transformer AKA the giant blue samurai. John Dimaggio, who voiced Crosshairs, portrays a generic action robot in a generic action film, a character you will most assuredly forget. Reno Wilson, returned to voice Brains, even when fans begged him to stay away.