Saturday, July 05, 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction






  • Released Internationally on 25/06/14
  • Released in Malta by KRS on 06/07/14
Review (05/07/14)
3-word review: Very slight improvements. 
They’re back for another assault on earth and on our summer box-office. After the Decepticons were defeated in the rather disruptive battle of Chicago in the third film, earth had had enough of the Transformers. The last remaining few are being hunted down and used for scrap and research. But an inevitable comeback is taking shape.
What’s new?
Shia LaBeouf is gone, and his main role is now taken over by a garage mechanic and single dad portrayed by Mark Wahlberg. His unconvincing family consists of his daughter (newcomer Nicola Peltz), together with her boyfriend (Jack Reynor). They end up helping Optimus Prime and his Autobots, despite a worldwide mission by black ops to hunt down and destroy them, aided by an other-worldly Transformer named Lockdown. Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) heads the covert CIA mission, and Stanley Tucci (The Hunger Games) is the head or a research corporation who is using the scrapped parts to build earth’s own Transformers. From a nostalgia, childhood-toy point of view, the main new addition is the Dinobots, whom I fondly remember, but who are practically unrecognisable here after the usual Michael Bay ‘upgrade’.

In the end
Michael Bay had given the impression that he was done with the Transformers after the third film, which was even worse than the second one. Something changed his mind, and he decided to take a slightly new direction. But apart from a new human cast and a hardly noticeable new design for the titular robots, nothing much has changed. The action is still disorderly and messy, and the plot and characters are still very weak. Hong Kong offers a slightly more interesting backdrop for destruction, but there’s very little here to recommend, especially if you hated the previous instalments.






Mark5





Trailer: