Transformers 4: Age of Extinction (Spoilers)

[Computron]

TL:DR

Awful

Long version:

Awful for the following reasons.

So boring. Just soooo booooooring. So much petty boring human storyline garbage. Takes like 30 minutes before anything remotely TF related happens and even then it's another 30 minutes before there's an honest to goodness fight. And even during the fights its more stupid human boring pathos rather than actual Transformers plot development.

Drift is just the dumbest design. I'm sorry, but what a waste of Ken Watanabe. John Goodman's voice is also the same in every scene, as if he is having a chat over brandy with some friends.

The only redeeming thing in this entire waste of money was Lockdown. He stole every scene he was in. A shame he was in so few of them.

Hilariously enough, the Dinobots copied the roles they had in the animated movie. Snarl gets excised from the movie as before, Swoop never actually does anything, Slag is cool, and Grimlock smashes things. But holy crap are the Dinobots the Deus Ex Machina to end all Machinas.

It's basically "Oh crap, Galvatron is really messing things up and we only have 10 minutes left in the movie to fix it. Oh wait, good thing this shuttle we stole happens to have 4 of the most powerful Transformers ever to exist in it."

Oh and as an aside, I didn't realize that Optimus Prime had the dV to escape Earth gravity and go faster than lightspeed but WHY NOT?

[cosmotron]

It wasnt just horrible, it was an epic-al disaster. A new low for even Michael Bay.
Its a movie about robots but all bay spends more time finding ways to destroy buildings in more annoying ways. There are more building shots then robots

No plot
horrible dialogue
campy humor with b grade villains. Kelsey complaining about how he has served his country and now wants to cash out? How original

Nothing explained as to why humans turned on autobots and why the autobots didn't just blast off into space as prime has his "astro boy" jetpack
we were invaded by evil robots so lets create more evil robots so they can turn on us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111
Dinobots basically have a 5 second cameo.

Bay should be banned from transformers. I was able to stomach the first 3 and didnt mind them. This movie was painful toe even watch. 45 minutes in and was looking at my phone and the exit sign


end rant

[Yaya]

I wasn't going to see this. But seeing as how your review is better than expected you've got me all curious.

[Best First]

i ain't even going to bother.

1 month 'til Gaurdians yo.

[Professor Smooth]

I liked it.

[bumblemusprime]

Let us all take a moment to savor this:

the worst of the films, and that's saying a lot, was based partially off the Mike Costa run.

[Brendocon]

I thought it was alright.

If you go in expecting to hate it, it won't change your mind. But it's the fourth one and we all know what to expect from it by now.

I mean yeah it's obviously dreadful, but subjectively speaking it was alright. I enjoyed it anyway.

[inflatable dalek]

Yeah, it's not going to change the minds of anyone who didn't enjoy the first three, but overall I enjoyed it a lot, daft as a brush and definitely half and hour too long, but still good fun. Depending on how it stands up to a second viewing on Blu Ray it's probably on the same level of DotM and just behind the first in terms of quality.

My rambly incoherent initial thoughts on YouTube:

http://thesolarpool.weebly.com/blog/tra ... tion-event

I was mildy surprised how much Drift was the James Roberts complete and utter piss take version of the character, pretty much everything he said and did felt like it came right out of MTMTE. I was expecting something more like McCarthy's delusion of a completely serious bad ass ninja character.

[Professor Smooth]

I chuckled at just how *meta* the whole thing was.

The scene in the theater where the owner is talking about how movies used to be good, but now it's all reboots and sequel crap. The obvious "comic relief" character shows up, does his "obvious comic relief", and then gets BRUTALLY MURDERED. I didn't expect that. It was like Michael Bay said "so, you didn't like the comic relief in the last movies, huh? Well here ya go!"

Bumblebee used a clip from the Big Lebowski's Walter...who was played by John Goodman, the voice of "Hound".

WHY THE **** WASN'T HE BULKHEAD?!?! Is "HOUND" really THAT beloved of a character?

I had a much easier time swallowing the bloodthirsty Bayformer Optimus than I did the Bring Me Their Heads Pat Lee version. After the **** this Optimus has seen, I do not fault him one bit for being like "Fine! Some of these humans NEED killing."

Had a nice little laugh at Kre-o Galvatron (as voiced by Frank Welker).

Thanks for making the perfect set of Stunticons...and then not having them be Stunticons...

I kinda dig the running gag of re-writing Transformers history on Earth at the start of every movie.

RotF: Our worlds have met before!
DotM: We went to the moon to see a crashed TF spaceship!
AoE: Mother****ing dinosaurs!

I found the human story to be much more engaging than in the last two movies. And it did take some balls to have that "Romeo and Juliet Clause" in the movie. Although I was a bit worried that *that* would have been the bit that the media needed to jump on the story of the guy who ran that TF convention's misdeeds.

It was a bit long. But at least it all kind of made sense. You wonder what kind of idiot would name something Transformerium (or whatever), then you find out that he can't figure out why his new robot looks like Megatron...when it's hooked up to Megatron's goddamn head!

[Computron]

I had a much easier time swallowing the bloodthirsty Bayformer Optimus than I did the Bring Me Their Heads Pat Lee version. After the **** this Optimus has seen, I do not fault him one bit for being like "Fine! Some of these humans NEED killing."

On that I agree. This Optimus has been dicked around enough by this planet. However I do wish they'd explain where all these Autobots keep popping up from...

But yea, we plugged Megatron's head into our Transformer's factory and things keep going awry. HMMMMMMM...

[Brendocon]

Nah, see I love the fact that there's just a new batch on unexplained Autobots each time.

Crazy intro that establishes ANOTHER link between Earth and Cybertron.
Wacky backstory revelations that probably don't make any sense in context.
Brand new cast without even a vague attempt to explain why they weren't in it before.

It's getting to be a recurring gag. As if they're deliberately going out of their way to say "y'know what, [composite word including 'f*ck'] continuity" with each film.

Properly channeling the spirit of the original cartoon in that regard. Give it fifteen years and it'll be the next generation's equivalent of the Constructicons origins.

We all went and saw Edge of Tomorrow though, right?

[inflatable dalek]

Be fair, the end of the first film explained where new Autobots come from with Prime's message inviting any who pick it up to come to Earth (presumably they don't all pick it up at the same time and have different distances to travel, hence some new ones still showing up seven years later). The disappearances are equally explained by them being in a nasty viscous war with a high casualty rate, it doesn't really need to be spelt out- after Ratchet and Leadfoot do we really need further exposition on the horrible fates that have befallen everyone else?- and isn't really any different from the ever changing roster of Movie X-Men (the only other long running "Team" franchise that springs to mind at the moment).

I do agree the chariots of the Gods stuff with the Transformers being behind everything in ancient Earth history is now getting a bit silly, after dinosaur extinction, the moon landings, the pyramids and all twentieth century technology the only logical place for the 5th one to go is to have a naughty Decepticon kill Princess Diana.

[Computron]

We all went and saw Edge of Tomorrow though, right?

So good I'd see it again.

[spiderfrommars]

It’s just so long. So, so long.
You could take half an hour out of the middle of the film and it wouldn’t have affected the plot and the film would be better!
Do we need a 30 minute set piece on Lockdown’s ship? One of the best things about TFs is the contrast between the alien and the everyday, so why spend so much time making it look like generic sci-fi crap?
In fact, for me, the best-executed action scenes in these films always turn out to be the car chases, not the fights.

I found the human story to be much more engaging than in the last two movies.

Indeed. In fact I found the first hour very close in spirit to the first film (the only one of the four that qualifies as a decent movie IMO) but it was so predictable that they would eventually be lost in a blaze of exploding buildings.

On the plus side, most of the actors did great work when not sidelined (pity the poor Girl in the Fireplace). And I loved the homage to the cartoon of the Autobots in Monument Valley.

How many human casualties in this one again eh? Nice work Autobots!

[inflatable dalek]

Interesting how much more positive than usual the fan reaction to this one has been (though as far as critics go it's business as usual), everyone seems down on the length (rightly), but overall there's a lot of "But other than that it was quite good" style comments than have become normal for these films. The result of a genuinely better film, everyone being numbed to Bay or simply that the fans who really disliked the previous ones just haven't bothered?

Or does Fraiser just add awesome?

[snarl]

I won't be watching this, but people I know who went have said this is one of the most **** things they have ever seen.

I'm assuming this is absolute garbage - I've seen TF fans in the flesh at conventions. They're by and large grubby, weird twats with absolutely no idea!

I'm not surprised they like the film at all!

[Bumblebot]

It’s just so long. So, so long.
In fact, for me, the best-executed action scenes in these films always turn out to be the car chases, not the fights.

That Michael Bay, eh? He really knows who to get to 'CGI' his stock footage of a freeway to make it look newly-shot.

[spiderfrommars]

Interesting how much more positive than usual the fan reaction to this one has been (though as far as critics go it's business as usual), everyone seems down on the length (rightly), but overall there's a lot of "But other than that it was quite good" style comments than have become normal for these films. The result of a genuinely better film, everyone being numbed to Bay or simply that the fans who really disliked the previous ones just haven't bothered?

Or does Fraiser just add awesome?

Yes. He is brilliant.
But there was a genuine attempt to take things more seriously this time. This really wasn't goofy at all.
The damage is done though. Transformers - our beloved Transformers - have become, to modern ears, shorthand for 'Crap CGI Movies for Morons'.
I have to admit I'm a bit sad about that.