By Brenton Thom TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION is the fourth installment (so far) of the franchise. It is also the eleventh feature film from action director Michael Bay. The film is basically three different movies thrown into one, which might be a good or bad thing depending on who you are. Some people think more is better, but others, not so much. This one definitely has a lot going on, and with a run time of 161 minutes, it’s just shy of three hours. The film opens on Earth in the past, specifically the era of the dinosaurs. The planet is invaded by space machines which wipe out the dinosaur species with volcanic bombs, turning organic matter into an ash-like metal. Flash forward to the present - it’s been four years since the battle in Chicago (as seen in 2011's TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON), and we see sinister government agents hunting down various transformers (and not the evil Decepticon transformers, but the heroic Autobots) with the aid of a malevolent transformer of their own. This transformer assassin is a bounty hunter called Lockdown. He is working with the CIA, run by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), to track down Autobots (and the missing Optimus Prime in particular) for their own dark purposes. We then meet Mark Wahlberg’s character, Cade Yeager, and his daughter Tessa. Cade's a struggling, down-on-his-luck inventor who tries to sell scrap parts to pay off the mortgage of his home and also get his daughter into college. His daughter is also secretly seeing her racer boyfriend behind her father's back. This storyline (which echoes director Bay's earlier film, ARMAGEDDON) makes up the primary “human” element of the movie. A key subplot, and probably my favorite part of the story, is about a business tycoon, Joshua Joyce (played by Stanley Tucci), who uses the metal of the transformers to create a new type of matter, a matter that you can program and change. His company basically uses the technology to make their own transformers, which can shape-shift and transform into anything they are programmed to. Now where to begin the analysis of this film? I know one of the big complaints about the past Transformers movies was that people wanted the movies to be about the transformers, not humans, and just to see robots fight. Well, this movie at least makes an attempt at that. The opening scenes with the Autobots being hunted down and killed is a stab in that direction. Also, the movie does have a lot more development for the transformers as actual characters than the previous movies, and a few of them I really liked. I liked how cool the design for Lockdown was, and I enjoyed how the movie handled his secret intentions. He has a lone gunman/bounty hunter feel that's something new for this series. Think of Boba Fett when you see him. Something the movie could have dealt less with, though, was Cade Yeager’s daughter. Granted, we need to get humans in the movie to appeal to audience demographics, but that is the fatal flaw in this movie. There are countless points when the humans could have broken off from all the disaster and destruction. And even if they (the filmmakers) wanted to keep Cade a part of the story, he could have dumped his daughter off at any number of points along the way. But no, we drag her and her boyfriend along for the action. Through the entire movie, Cade's daughter is crying, or in peril. Same with her boyfriend! These two characters do very, very little to advance the plot. While I was watching the movie, I couldn't help but think of ARMAGEDDON, and how I cared more about what was going on with the human characters in that film, which has a similar dynamic as this one: the father/daughter relationship and the father despising the boyfriend. Part of me thought Wahlberg was going to sacrifice himself for her, or to save the world, but that never happens. It should have. The ending to ARMAGEDDON had more of an emotional impact, and I'll admit to getting misty at the end, but TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION barely approaches that kind of emotion. There isn't enough at stake. Honestly, the movie could have been about the CIA hunting down the transformers to harvest their technology in order to make their own transformers and the Autobots have to fight back. That would have been enough of a cool plot to allow for a solid flick, and it would have given the fans what they wanted. It would allow us to follow the Autobots and grow to care about them, instead of following the humans as they get into these high death-rate situations. The movie's not all bad news, though. There are two characters I think are pretty great. One is John Goodman (in voice form) as Hound, an Autobot from an Oshkosh DMTV Truck who is a commando. He's fixed with a lot of guns, ammo, and quite the mouth, to boot. His witty banter and playfulness made for a memorable, welcome character addition. The other good character is the one played by Stanley Tucci. Tucci steals the show. His character's a smart guy with his own motives, and actually has a arc in the story, which is way more than I can say about the other characters in the film. He learns what he’s doing is dangerous and wrong. But his character is along for the ride and is the most enjoyable part of the film. He has the best banter and lines in the whole movie! I’d bet that most of his lines are ad-libbed or things he came up with on the spot. Being a Michael Bay film, obviously the visuals are fantastic, as are the sound mix and music. Granted, I could care less about the soundtrack in the actual movie, but the score does help underscore the tone and story. Bay's visuals and shot compositions are outstanding. There is a great balance of colors, as well, and we get to see fantastic parts of the world, such as China, which keeps the action engaging. Overall, this movie delivers a lot of action, but if there is action without stakes or emotion, it can get boring. I ended up caring more for the Autobots and Optimus Prime than Wahlberg’s character and family. I found the action was more stimulating when the Autobots where fighting for their lives and their cause than any of the stuff involving the Wahlberg family story. Again, if they focused it on the transformers characters and cut out the Wahlberg family, we could connect with them. I know people might question how can you connect emotionally to a robot or non-human creature, but it's been done plenty of times in the past. You add human emotional elements to them. Give them human feelings. Examples: A.I.: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER, and even AVATAR (granted, those were giant blue cat aliens, but you still cared for them). I think with trimming and a script revision (or two) this movie could have been solid: have the Autobots dealing with the Stanley Tucci storyline along with the Lockdown and CIA stuff. Cut out Wahlberg's family entirely. They were the boring parts of the movie and did nothing to advance the story... except to cry and shout in fear and constantly need help from the Autobots. If you enjoy seeing a lot of action or are a die-hard fan of this franchise, the visuals alone will probably satisfy you if you decide to see it in cinemas. If the first part of that last sentence doesn't describe you, you could wait until it’s on home video. Personally, I did enjoy seeing it on the big screen and with great sound, but I did check my watch frequently. To each his (or her) own. It’s probably better to see on the big screen and in 3D if you only care about the visual experience, but if you care about character or story, it’s a movie you could easily wait to see at home with a rental... or perhaps not at all...
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