Transformers 5 has to happen. They wouldn't leave Galvatron like that and also Optimus has to find his creators!

 

Makes ya wonder why they spend so much time & thought on the hating. I see it as a self reflective problem.

 

Kinda funny that people still have that dumb Michael Bay hate, but still watch every TF or other Movie from him.

I love the Transformers Movies. And the not so dumb hyperbole hate Reviews Sound great to me.
I havent seen the Movie yet (only Trailers), but i already love Mark Wahlberg. Way better than Shia.

Cant wait to get the 3D BluRay for that Movie.

 

Gonna have to bump this until I get an answer, it was seriously the biggest technical error I have seen in a TF movie

 

loved the movie. one thing it pisses me off is the score. where is the scores? The fight scene between OP and Lockdown at the end, why they use a song??? this movie needs more explanation, so TF5 hurry the f*** up!!!

 

Official? Is Hasbro or Michael Bay making this thread? No, so it's NOT official. I am pretty sure it's sticky'ed.

That a side. I liked Galvatron, TJ Miller, Drift, Hound, Crosshairs, and Lockdown and Dinobots  

 

You know, that really did strike me as odd. I figured one of them was just bilingual and trying to tell an English speaking one something important, but they just went to speaking in Chinese again! Pretty bizarre.

I also remember at some completely random point a character whose voice I didn't recognize, saying something to the effect of "Good job!", and it just felt so out of place and struck me as odd. I'm pretty sure it was a part with the dinobots towards the end.

 

Just got back from watching it. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Age of Extinction. It felt a lot like DotM, albeit much more fluid and with human involvement that actually accomplishes something. The 'bots didn't get the amount of characterization I was hoping for, but it has improved nonetheless. Speaking about them- I'm happy to report that there were no Autobot casualties within the film (save for Ratchet and Leadfoot at the beginning), so Hound, Drift, Grimlock, etc should be available for future films. Unless they're killed off-screen.

A few side notes, Crosshairs was less assholeish than what some people have said. He just seemed like a sarcastic chap, and I ended up liking him by the end. Welker's voice sounded like a toned-down G1/Prime Megatron and I can't wait to see what happens with Galvatron. Prime launching into space a la superman felt really cheesy, and I truly wonder how that's going to tie in to the next movie(s).

 

Spoiler

sciene fair's over meat bags

oh god I loved that line. I just got out and still can't decide which new autobot I liked more they were all hysterical and got their moment to shine. what a movie I can't wait to watch again.

 

So I just got back from Transformers: Age of Extinction. And I'm kinda in shock.

You see, knowing Michael Bay's track record on TF movies, I figured this would be, at best, another Dark of the Moon. After seeing the stunning shelacking critics are giving the movie at Rotten Tomatoes (Currently at 18%), I was expecting another Revenge of the Fallen (Which is at 19% on the tomatometer).

What I got was a movie far better than the either of those, and arguably a good deal better than TF1. It's also easily Michael Bay's most coherent movie. I'm half convinced they gave him doped him up on Ritalin.

Now, is it a stunning achievement of cinema? Heck no. It's at it's heart, a Michael Bay TF movie. Expect a silly plot, lots of explosions and some sweet action sequences. But the film as actual characters. More importantly, it has actual Transformer characters. The Autobots have more scenes dedicated to just them interacting then the entire previous three movies combined, and all 5 have their chance to really shine and establish (though not quite develop - this is Michael Bay after all) characters.

More importantly, we have an actual villain. Lockdown has more presence, threat and charisma then Megatron, Starscream, Shockwave, Soundwave and Sentinel Prime ever managed in their films. The human villains are excellent as well. Galvatron is also introduced, but he's pretty obviously a set up for 5.

And we actually went a whole film without them randomly dropping any TF characters out of the plot.

Now, it does have problems, but mostly toward the end. Fair warning: The Dinobots are very underused and kinda come out of nowhere. No, they don't talk. And then Optimus gains flight kinda randomly at the end. And yes, we spend entirely too much time with meatbags. There's a motorcycle chase that could have been excised completely with no loss to the film.

But overall, at least the second best, if not the best of the series. I cannot fathom how it's doing THAT bad on Rotten Tomatoes. There's no way this is a worse film then Revenge of the Fallen. Heck, it's certainly better than Wolverine Origins (38%), to pick something at random. I highly suspect it's a concerted effort to try and end Michael Bay's career. I'm thinking scandal here.

 

I am not lying when I say this, my showing was literally empty. there were 2 showings happening at the same time at mine: the 2D and 3D showings (like everyone else's in America) literally EVERYONE went to the 2D showing and it was a full house. The 3D showing? Me, my dad, and 9 other random strangers were the only ones at the 3D showing. What the actual fuck? LOL

 

~Spoilers~

PROS:
It was the best 3-D movie I've seen, the 3-D was solid.
The humor was actually pretty good for the most part.
All of the Autobots had great personality + great characterization.
The films dark tone kept the characters on edge, and all the emotion put into the robot and humans deaths were handled with real sadness, loss, and anger by the other characters.
Lockdown was awesome and quite evil.
Optimus Prime is badass and very angry, but still heroic.
Stanley Tucci was great as the eccentric billionaire inventor turned reluctant hero.
Wahlberg was soooo much better in the lead human role than Shia.
Frank Welker killed it as the voice of Galvatron, he made Galvatron awesome.
They actually explain why Galvatron looks like Megatron and why he has a truck alt. mode.
It gave an explanation as to what happened to previous films Autobots (they were hunted and murdered) instead of ignoring the previous bots form each iteration to the next, as the last three films did.
The actors all could act.. well, almost.
Our own government (mostly CIA) is portrayed as either ignorant, dumb, greedy, and/or just plain evil.
Everyone (human and robot) got good lines and zingers.
The story was fun, and it felt much more sci-fi than ever before.
The film gets a bit meta by breaking the fourth wall to poke fun at itself a few times.
The ending teases more films taking place.. in space!
And the end also sets up sequels for more Galvatron, more Dinobots, and more aliens and mythos in the future.
It blew the other three films away!

CONS:
The runtime is a little long.. but I didn't mind.
Some dumb teenage humor, especially at the beginning.
Bumblebee is still slightly annoying to me, but people love him.
The movie demands you suspend your disbelief and ignore of the laws of gravity, reality, and physics.
Too much very obvious and blatant product placement.

It made the first three look like poop.

I loved it, a 9/10 overall.

So good, in fact, I just ordered voyager Hound and Galvatron from Amazon.

 

As most people already know, I am very much not a fan of the Bayformer movies at all. And that's putting it delicately. That said, I just came back from my advanced screening of AOE, and all I can say is:

Holy. Shit. It was unbelievably good. It took him 4 movies to do it, but the son of a bitch FINALLY did it right. I'm still in awe of how well done it was. Not only is there an insane amount of TF screen time, but they all got GREAT characterization. All of them. And damn, did John Goodman and Kelsey Grammer ever steal the show. Whalberg, chick that played his daughter, guy that played her boyfriend, Tucci... all gave AMAZING performances. First time ever where all the human stuff was actually good AND interesting, and not at filler feeling. This is what happens, I guess, when you get actual real actors vs. whatever the hell we got in the previous three train wrecks. Cullen, somehow unbelievably even better than what we're used to, so that's saying a LOT. Hands down his best voice performance to date. Welker = pure gold! and finally the voice of Megatron that I and many others have always wanted to hear in these movies, even if it was technically for Galvatron. Lockdown as the main villain - holy shit, finally the first ever villain that was actually scary as hell and a believable threat. Plot was also pretty goddamn solid, as was the writing & dialogue in general. Dinobots ended up getting about five times more screen time than I expected they would, so that was great... and they were great, albeit not explained why they are what they are. The only issue I really had was with the man made Transformers atom splitting whateverness morphing transformations. It was really overdone and got old very fast. Bottom line was they're not Transformers; literally transmorphing robots, so that kind of sucked. But Bay, that damn Bay, he actually nailed it. Even his directing this time - much more organic & realistic feeling, calmer and just MUCH better thought out and executed this time around. Seems that extra year off to put this together properly REALLY made all the difference, and for the first time since this franchise started I actually feel like HE is now an actual fan who acknowledges some proper original source material. Still can't believe how well he did with this. All in all, I will definitely be seeing this in theatres again at least one more time. And that also says something, given my very vocal contempt for the all the previous installments.

So, yeah, my quick two cents.

 

^^^ Heh, at this point, I want to just believe that knocking the Transformers movies is almost a necessity to be accepted in the movie critic community. "Oh, you like the Transformers movies? Then screw your opinion on anything else."

 

You said it near perfectly. I would only add that the one-off English line I previously mentioned was ridiculous, and that the Dinobots should have been in there longer. But I was fucking blown away. Kinda wish a couple other TF's from 1-3 survived too.

 

My theater was pretty full, people clapped at the end and talked about it being good on the way out.

Just depends on what kind of crowd you were around

 

I went to IMAX 3D and it was close to being a sold out full house. The audience clapped at the end and as it ended I heard people right behind me exclaim "I want to watch it again!"

 

Despite some real improvements in this from the previous, I liked it less.

The character/personality development really is better this time. The problem is we're going from horrible (previously) to just bad this time. But this was expected and would have actually been a nice bonus for me.

Unfortunately I'm not sure this one had a single good robot fight sequence and that's really been why I've put up with (and been kind of addicted to) these movies up to this point. Nothing in this movie comes remotely close to the forest fight in ROTF or the Freeway fight in DOTM.

We also have something we haven't seen previously, elaborate human on human battle/chase scenes with barely a robot in sight. (I'm not here to watch humans battle each other or battle aliens- in both cases there are literally hundreds of movies where it's done better than Bay ever could)

Dinobots were kind of great, but they're barely in it.

Lockdown is a great villain.

The movie was also probably the least coherent of the series. Maybe ROTF was (hard to decide).

There were plenty of things I liked (including Mark Whalberg), and John Goodman was great as Hound. But these movies have always been terrible. What's kept me coming back and forgiving everything wrong with them has been the fights. These fights just didn't measure up for me at all this time.

Just my two cents. Most of the reviews on here seem pretty positive.

 

Nope. It's just that there were so many things wrong with this movie.

 

Major spoilers to follow:

If you can, AoE is absolutely worth seeing in 3D and XD. The transformations of the bots were breathtakingly beautiful, I mean Bay really knocked that out of the park. And Ratchet's death scene and the melting down his head for scrap metal was absolutely heart wrenching. I'm really glad Bay took time to mourn the death too; mostly in Optimus' line, "We're not machines, and he was my friend!" Good stuff.

I'm really curious as to where the next film is going to go in terms of public sentiment towards the bots. They did destroy another city, but they're being hunted didn't seem to sit right with a lot of the characters; so maybe the tide will turn in the autobots favor?. Also, heads up, there is at least one human death that was surprisingly gruesome; it made DotM's sequence of vaporizing humans and leaving their bones behind look tame. For kids, parents be warned, there is lots of use of the word "bitch" and the F bomb gets dropped too.

The ONLY grievance I had with the film was Optimus character. I love Prime, I do, and I understand that AoE was meant to push him to a darker place (which oh my does it get dark for his character!); but this is Prime like we've never seen him before. There were moments when he literally threw temper tantrums (kicking things over in KSI's lab and stomping his feet), and I was shocked that he executed Kelsey Grammer's character. But then...in the midst of my wondering what happened to the honorable and noble Prime, it is important to remember this is Bay's version of Prime: murder, mayhem and sheer raw, unrivaled brutality is how he is defined when the fighting starts. Bay's Prime I think is meant to be a good soldier, who knows how to fight dirty when he needs to (and when he does, oh my does it get dirty) but seeing Prime spout lines like "I'm going to kill you" and "Whoever is responsible for this is going to die" was Rotf face-ripping levels. Just didn't feel like Prime. Especially when he stabs Lockdown in the back and then immediately spouts, "Honor above all." Whut?

Again, I really enjoyed this film, cannot wait for the next one. I guess my grievances with Prime are stemming from the initial shock. There are moments in the film that completely justify Prime's brutality on the battlefield; but that doesn't mean he gets to throw temper tantrums.