Transformers: Age of Extinction Movie Review

Expectations lower than dirt are what I had going into this movie. To my surprise the first hour and a twenty minutes were great. Age of Extinction follows all new characters set five years after the events of the third film. The movie’s plot is pretty much the same format we saw in the first three films: “Get the spark before the Decepticons do.” The start of the film focused more on introducing the new cast rather than showcasing the 
Transformers, which I personally liked. I was in awe of the creative and energetic camera work, smooth editing, and well executed soundtrack. One thing this movie had going for it right out the gate was the totally revamped cast. Mark Wahlberg did a much better job carrying the film than previous stars. We all can admit that none of us could stomach watching Shia LaBeouf run around screaming for Bumble Bee while the same predicable plot unfolded. The cliché plot is still present in the forth installment, and got boring during the two hour forty-five minute runtime. The movie had a lot of great things going for it during the early stages. It set up characters well, established a sturdy plot for the first couple of acts and captured humor and attention spans very well. Once the film got closer to the halfway mark it started to lose it’s magic. The rest of the film was weak and the prolonged fighting sequences became annoying. Even though the plot is about an alien race taking over earth, the makers pushed the envelope on what humans could realistically, physically withstand. This left me and many in the audience thinking, “That’s impossible,” several times. I felt the superhuman-like portrayal and unrealistic abilities of the main stars to repeatedly escape life-threatening situations, unscathed, was way over the top. It started to remind me of the second and third film in the series. The same sort of battles were beginning to unfold with predictable outcomes. The CGI was the film’s saving grace, as it looked good most of the time with only occasional hiccups. In my opinion the only reason to watch this movie would be to see the special effects on the big screen. There’s really nothing deeper than cool CGI and cheesy laughs in the film, but I have to say I was entertained by how it looked on the outside. Inside, Age of Extinction is nothing we haven’t seen before from Michael Bay. 

C-