‘Transformers Age of Extinction’ Review: Bad story ruins great effects, decent cast
The new film in the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Age of Extinction, is certainly entertaining, but is just a disorganized mess when it comes to a story. Michael Bay will take too much blame for Ehren Kruger’s script which has too many subplots, most of which the audience doesn’t care about.
Age of Extinction, AOE, picks up five years after the war in Chicago (Revenge of the Fallen) and the US government has declared all out war on all of the alien Transformers, including the Autobots. Mark Wahlberg takes over as the human lead, trying to make ends meet and protect his daughter (Nicola Peltz) from making bad boyfriend decisions.
Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager is a novice inventor and purchases Optimus Prime with some scrap metal. Part of the CIA’s involvement, led by Kelsey Grammer, is a secret allegiance with a Transformer bounty hunter named Lockdown who is after Prime. That isn’t enough to keep the story moving, so there’s also a corrupt corporation who has devised a way of creating new Transformers using their tech, particularly that from Megatron’s head.
The story is complicated by several unnecessary scenes, really cliche dialogue and a plot holes that your child will bring up.
- Why does Hound smoke and cuss like a sailor?
- Once there is video proof of the US conspiracy why not go public?
- Several times the injured Autobot similar “scans and transforms” into a new vehicle which makes no sense?
Shockingly the acting is the least of the problems here. While there is nothing special about any of the performances, the story little to nothing unique for the cast. The special effects make Transformers and fans won’t be disappointed.
Obviously another film is already in the works, but the first change which must be made is eliminate Kruger from the creative process. After Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon that should have seemed obviously, but Bay’s loyalty cost him dearly.
The franchise is less and less for little kids, so be warned that there is a lot of profanity and rude humor. It’s completely irrelevant to the story, but earlier films were always wrought with inappropriate content for the younger viewers.
Dinobots show up a little too late, but it worked. There’s just too much time wasted on fluffy scenes for jokes or slapstick. AOE is way too long, like the Pirates of the Caribbean films, someone needed to speak up and trim 20 minutes or so off of these films.
Overall Transformers: Age of Extinction earns 2 stars out of 5
Entertainment is key not story, so add a star if that is enough for you. Fellow audience members cheered at the end of this film, so you shouldn’t feel alone.
[…] As stated in my review of AOE: Ehren Kruger needs to […]