I thought, from the word around the street, that this was finally going to be the film where the robots took center stage. Nope. It's 100% Mark Wahlberg's story that happens to involve Optimus Prime.

Spoiler

While Prime fights Lockdown across several rooftops, we're treated to Mark being driven around for 10 minutes instead. During Prime's rescue, we're instead shown Tessa's rescue by Mark. In the finale, Mark Wahlberg actually gets a longer fight with Lockdown than Prime gets.

Bumblebee takes Sam's place as jealous prick, surprisingly. Lockdown was cool I guess.

Spoiler

Too bad he never gets a proper action scene until the end and that scene was almost as laughable as the Sam vs. Starscream skirmish.

I'll take Shia and his weird ass random events over the failed drama that is Mark Wahlberg's family troubles.

I liked all the government dudes, which includes Li Bingbing, Stan Tucci, and Kelsey Grammer, and movie Optimus is as fun as ever. "HEEERRRRREEE III AAMMMMMMMM!!!!"

The plot is overstuffed and the human drama did not connect with me in the least. Movie's okay other than that. It delivers on random shit happening and I still had a lot of fun with it.

Oh, and can we talk about that ending battle? It was like a bizarre music video. The music just did not complement the action. It was like a 30 minute loop of the beginning of Battle Cry just so that the film can cut to credits blaring the theme. Oh, and the hell was that two-headed Shockwave? There were 2 of those things.

 

Hey, guys! Here's my video review.

[youtube]Mc3K8jRf7Tk[/youtube]

 

Okay, here’s my review.

Transformers is pretty much an acquired taste, like anime or STAR WARS. Either you’re into it, or you’re not. And when you’re into it, there will still be some parts of it that you didn’t really agree with.

So I’ll just say that I found it okay, with sort of equal parts of plus and minus points, with some points in between.


GOOD POINTS
CADE YEAGER - Mark Wahlberg’s character inventor Cade Yeager makes a good human protagonist. Shia LaBeouf’s Sam Witwicky was okay in the first film, but by the next two sequels he had turned into an annoying whining little git who was complaining about whatever he wanted. In this film Walhberg is a decent American, dedicated to protecting his family and trusting in the Autobots. He is a refreshingly good-hearted and noble human protagonist, a sort of civilian Lennox (the soldier from the previous films).

GALVATRON - While I disliked Megatron getting killed in DOTM (I was in favour of the truce ending), it worked out well as it enabled him to return with a new body and a new name. And of course Welker is now able to voice him, as it should have been.

LOCKDOWN – He made an awesome antagonist. He was someone different from what we’d seen before. A bounty hunter with an awesome arsenal, filled with an awesome squadron and awesome hunting creatures. His business-like contemptuous presence, which was able to put even Attinger in his place, was great to see.

THE AUTOBOTS – The new Autobots seen in the film get some great personality and dynamics: the samurai Drift, the ever-complaining Crosshairs and the fat soldier Hound. Both Hound and Crosshairs were absolutely wonderful to see on screen, Hound especially is my favourite Transformer from TF4 and Crosshairs is a jerk with a heart of gold (and both have some great voice acting). Drift doesn’t do too much, but Watanabe does his best.

THE VFX/ACTION – My goodness, Bay knows how to give good action! A car chase through Texas, a highway fight, a battle inside a ship, a big stand from Hound and Bee and the climactic beatdown between Optimus and Lockdown. Even the Chinese actress gets an awesome kung fu sequence. It’s almost worth watching the film for these sequences, if nothing else.



MIXED FEELINGS
THE DINOBOTS - They were incredible. Finally we have the Autobot faction that transform into dinosaurs. Their modes and backstory were awesome to behold, a combination of aged knights and primal animals who deal out some carnage!
But they didn’t talk. And they were little more than an army of newly recruited Autobots, their history as knights was implied but never really touched upon.

THE HUMOUR – It was considerably tame for a Michael Bay film. Most of the humour comes from Shane Dyson (Jack Reynor, doing a fairly good job) and Bumblebee (who still acts a teenager who throws a tantrum), and is fairly moderate.
The curious thing is, I felt it was excessively cut. The dance scene with Bumblebee was cut out. The comic relief dude gets flash-fried to a cinder. I mean, you have to balance the comedy with the seriousness but I thought this was way too serious for actually enjoying the film.



BAD POINTS
THE HUMAN ANTAGONISM - There is simply no more excuse for humanity’s behavior towards the Transformers now. It’s been four films, spanning a decade or so, and humans are still against the Transformers and not knowing/caring about the difference between them! The human race wanted the Autobots out in ROTF and they had them exiled in DOTM, the latter move which occurred only because the Decepticons promised to let them live... to be their slaves. And then the Chicago massacre occurred despite the exile. And now they are hunting and dissecting Transformers to make their own army. This is not only stupidity but bigotry at an abysmal degree.

Even Optimus Prime, a legendary figure of unity who said he saw goodness in the people of Earth, has lost his patience/faith with them. And I don’t blame him. This is supposed to be “good aliens vs evil aliens”, not “good aliens vs evil humans” like almost every “friendly alien” film has gone with.

Now the film has definitely presented Attinger as hiding his deal with Joshua and Lockdown from the public and government. But still, he is a human villain and IMHO that is not what these films should go with. His storyline was done the moment Galvatron appeared – after that his end was imminent plotwise and needn’t have been dragged out.


THE MAN-MADE DECEPTICONS - Part of the human factor problem relates to there being no more Decepticons. Well, to be exact, there is one, and he got a new body. Then that’s it.

The storyline of man-made evil robots has been done for a long time, not only through general stories (Skynet, HAL, Ultron, Sentinel mutant-hunters) but in Transformers too (Stunticons, Nemesis Prime, etc). So why did we get another army of drones? Why couldn’t we get an army of decent characterized Decepticons? Why didn’t we get Decepticon staple Starscream to come back? And why can’t we ever get a man-made Transformer to join the Autobots?

LACK OF CONTINUITY - All the humans from before – Sam, Carly, Lennox, Epps, Simmons, and even the one-film characters like Keller and Leo – don’t appear or get a mention. With the other films it was a sense of making a (more or less) standalone story, but in this case the film was presenting itself as a reboot, and it goes only halfway. Thus there are so many questions that are left unanswered:
- What just happened in the period between DOTM and AOE to cause human-Autobot relations to break down?
- Where did Attinger come from? How did he become like that?
- What happened to the other unmentioned Transformers - namely Sideswipe, Mirage, Wheelie, Roadbuster and Topspin – and any Decepticons outside Chicago? Did they make it out as well?
- Why use a Transformium seed? I mean, why not go with getting Optimus’s Matrix of Leadership, or even a duplicate AllSpark? And wtf kind of a word is “Transformium” anyway?


THE CREATORS – This is a clear homage to the Quintessons, the builders of the Transformers. After three films of Transformers being born, they are now said to be built? Even if this is a reboot/sequel, this is still a hell of a thing to say.

It would depend on whether you prefer your Transformers to be born, or built. The Quintessons have been rather polarizing among fans – some like them, some hate them, some want Primus and Unicron, etc. I’d really rather they have just left the origins with the Allspark.


THE TRANSFORMATIONS – The VFX transformations were good, but they were not Transformer transformations. Transforming through shifting plates and parts is far different from transforming through turning into gloop and then reforming.
Besides, what “real” transformations we see now make the CGI even more noticeable than it was before. Drift turning from a car to a copter, Optimus and Bee growing new alternate modes... it just doesn’t work out. You could call it a new visual aesthetic, but on the whole it appears like they’d chameleon-scaled the things across them instead of proper scanning. I mean, even the most fluid metal cannot change a plush pony into an automatic.



What I expect from a film adaptation of a cartoon series is that the film be at least as enjoyable and fun as the cartoon (even if it’s an alien war cartoon). I got that from the first two films, but I didn’t get that from the third and fourth films. But I’ll say that I found this a little better than DOTM.


I hope people can understand, if not appreciate, what I’m saying.

 

Well... I liked the core concepts present in the film. Humans build their own Transformers, Megatron resurrects himself as Galvatron, man-made TFs run amok, Autobots have to stop them.

I liked Lockdown.

I liked the Dinobots.

Individually.

See, my problem with the film is that it throws far too much at the viewer too fast for them to process whatever's going on. The first hour or so moves at a respectable pace, but the ending is so much action that it's overstimulating. I needed a breather after watching this film. Maybe that's what Bay and his crew were going for. But when I walk out of an action film, I both expect and hope to feel exhilarated, not exhausted.

Furthermore, the CGI is more conspicuous here than in previous installments. During the scene where the humans are driving around with the Seed while Lockdown's ship is sucking up metal because reasons, you can tell they're looking at a green screen.

And... Is the allspark effectively retconned or something? I assumed the Cube created Optimus and co., but apparently not. I'm so confused.

There are plenty of good points in this movie, don't get me wrong, but it's too much for me to process. I'm struggling to recall what happened when.

 

Just saw the movie, and it seems like the opinion is very mixed. Overall though, I liked it and would rank the movies as 1 > 4 > 3 > > > > 2.

Pros
- I thought Cade was a much better human character than Sam. Sam felt more along the ride while Cade is ready to roll up his sleeves and help out whenever. Or another way, the Transformers worked with NEST and NEST worked with Sam, but I never really felt like Sam worked with the Transformers the way Cade did. The final battle with Lockdown showed how humans can augment and help the Transformers, rather than sit on the sidelines.

- I liked that we really understand who each of the Autobots are. Beyond Ironhide and Ratchet, very few of the Autobots are memorable outside of the TF fandom. Who were Arcee? Jolt? Sideswipe? Now what about Hound, Crosshairs, and Samurai-bot (did they ever actually call him Drift)? Even if the bots were one dimensional, I felt like I knew them all the same way we knew the small team in TF1.

- Maybe it doesn't hold up on rewatches, but I thought the plot was much more coherent than 2 and 3. I understood why everything was happening and where the team was going. Again, maybe with more time the flaws will be more apparent but for now, I think this was a better-constructed plot.

Cons

- The music and sound, specifically while they were in China. Battle Cry suffered the same way that Iridescent did in TF3 in that it's played too damn much. There are situations where it would have worked, but not as many times as they wanted to use it. Also, a LOT of the sound was muted/muffled/toned down in the final China fight and I really didn't like it. Particularly during the Lockdown fight. I want to "hear" those hits, not hear them through a mountain of cotton.

- Tessa and Shane. Shane was OK, Tessa was unbearable. She seemed to take the stupidest choices whenever possible, and I don't think the actress was all that good.

- Too many situations where it seemed obvious that we're missing Transformers to focus on Cade and company. I think the Lockdown/Optimus fight at the beginning was a great example, because we're spending too much time watching the Man In Black chase the boyfriend's car just so we can get a handjob joke in. We literally see Lockdown chasing Optimus up the building off to the side of the frame while the camera focuses on Shane's car. I get that CGI is expensive, but let's at least make it feel like we're not missing the real action.

The Inbetween

- Stanley Tucci's character was in there as the Turturro role, but I liked Tucci more overall. And he actually spends the first 2/3rds of the movie as an understandable and toned-down character. Once he got to China, I didn't like him as much but if Tucci comes back for TF5, I won't complain.

- The Dinobots. One part I didn't 100% buy was how the Dinobots come out of mostly nowhere. I get that Lockdown collected trophies, and even referenced them when he put Optimus away, but they are basically called out of nowhere when Prime needs help. They were underused as well, but I thought they worked.

- STILL NO ONE TALKS WHEN THEY'RE A VEHICLE! It's like they stop being robots as soon as they transform. Like I said, CGI is expensive, but that seems like a no-brainer way to convey more story points that are Transformer-relevant without blowing a CGI budget.

I thought it was good. I wish I could say Bay learned his lessons from TF1-3, but I don't think so. I think it just happened to work out this way. Maybe I expected it to be garbage and it turned out better than my expectations. I don't expect TF5 and beyond to take the positives here and carry them on. TF4 shows that he can still make an interesting TF movie, but thanks to this movie, I've learned that Bay's track record is much more random. Taking them as separate entities seems to be the best way to go forward, because he doesn't know how to enhance the things he does well and remove the things that don't work.

 

Wow I feel like such an outsider here. Everyone's either like "I liked some of it, hated the rest." Or they're "it was god awful!" I'm in like that SMALL SMALL portion that absolutely loved it. Did I think it was too long? Yea a tiny bit.
Did I feel like with everything going on the plot was a bit overstuffed? Sure, the two different conflicts could've easily been two different movies. Like have Lovkdown and idea of the Creators be one, then the man made transformers be a different movie. But this idea was saved by the fact the two plots were connected in a way that actually made sense.
Did I think the Dinobots were underused? Hell yes that was the only thing about this movie plot wise I didn't like. I wish at least Grimlock would've said a few words, even in cybertronian. But I applaud Bay for not f-ing the Dinobots up. And I give him props for actually having the balls to include them, something that I believe when he was making ROTF he said he was completely against. He may not have wanted to do it, but they turned out to be bad ass. The designs were amazing.
Cade and his character and the whole plot with Tessa and Shane was a much better plot than anything with Sam and Mikaela/Carly/Bee. Hell, the autobots had a better subplot, with Crosshairs and Bee having a little tussle over leadership. At least the autobots, and some of the humans, had actual character traits this time.
Acting wise, yea there were some really sucky actors (Tessa the only one actually) but the rest brought their A game. I loved the scene where Cade and Shane went covert into the KSI building, because watching Shane try to calm Bee was hilarious.
That's another thing. The humor. Everyone is so anti humor for the movie. Sorry but I think that's kinda hypocritical. People hated ROTF and DOTMs humor. And then Bay tried to tame the humor, and even though there was some pretty obvious chances for him to make a sexist or racist joke, the script didn't do it. True, the film was a tad dark for even myself. But the humor that was in it was funny, and it showed Bay didn't need dogs humping or robots overusing curse words to be funny. All he needed was Marky Marks perfect timing and Stanley Tuccis charm and the humor worked!

Overall, yes this movie had some faults. But I can overlook them for the simple fact that the rest of the movie was AMAZING!!!! Like the rest of the series, this one is just one movie where it's essential you don't over think it, and turn your brain off for the needed runtime, (even if the film could've shaved off about 30 minutes or more.)

My advice to bay for TF5 (should we be lucky to get it):
-Runtime of 2 hour and 20 minutes MAX
-being back Mark and maybe Tucci
-Don't cram in too many plots
-Go into more detail about the Dinobots and the Creators (which is kinda a given for it already)
-don't make Galvatron be a sidekick for another villain. Let him have his moment to shine, because what we saw of him in AOE I loved.
-Don't be afraid to put more smart humor in it, don't make it quite as dark.

I give this a 8.9/10. Far from perfect, but headed in the right direction.
(For reference I gave TF 7.5/10, ROTF 6/10 and DOTM 7.9/10)

 

That movie was actually dogshit.
Tolerable dogshit all the way up to Lockdown leaving. If the movie wrappe dup there it woiuld've just been a bad movie, but it went on and everything around them going to China was just agonizingly bad like fuckin like optiMUS HAD JET BOOTS AND THEN THE DINOBOTS CAME OUT OF A HOLE IN THE SHIP??

 

To be honest, As a Transformer film, I actually quite liked. There was very little I didn't enjoy. Yes, I would have liked if the Dinobots had more screen time, and LINES. Yes, I would have liked the music to be like 1 dB softer. Yes, I wish it was a tad shorter. But all of that asside, I honestly feel like this is the best Transformers film we've gotten since the first one, and I really enjoyed it.

Also, Transformium? Really? You went with that, and not "Transmetal?" Thats what I would have chosen...

 

loved the movie. In fact we all did, my 4 year old had a great time screaming optimus optimus whenever he came on screen, and the imax audio made it so no one could hear him. The plot was pretty lame, even for a michael bay movie. Stanley Tucci was funny, but sometimes annoying. The rest of the support cast were ok. MArk Wahlberg looked like he just returned from his tour of duty in "the lone survivor". That probably explains his ripped body, his combat skills and handling of the alien gun.

Among the bots, Optimus rocked as always. My second favorite was hound, great job John Goodman. Bumblebee had his moments. The rest were fillers. Drift looked cool but I hate that actor's voice for some reason, he sounds the same whatever movie he is in. Too bad Galvatron didnt get too much screen time but I guess he will be back in TF5.

 

I liked it. I really hope they bring back Mark for TF5. He was bearable and likeable. Actually, everyone was tolerable...well, maybe not the dude that looked like Sammy Hagar but he got taken out early on so whatever. Galvatron was heavily underplayed but at least they didn't kill him. Lockdown and Stinger were pretty cool and I was rooting for Hound while he have the final fight everything he got.

I hope they stick with this Autobot lineup from now on. They look great!

 

Other thoughts I had forgotten to mention:

1.) This is a pretty dark film. This one doesn't seem to be aimed at kids too much, which is odd considering the previous three were full of filth and seemed more accessible.
When Lucas dies, it's pretty damned ugly. The aftermath makes your jaw drop and think "WTF?!" Some kids in the audience made noises when it happened.

2.) Melting down Ratchet's head was just messed up. A little more than it should've been. It was bad enough to chase him down with one leg and kill him mercilessly, but with melting him down, there's no chance of bringing him back, even with the Matrix. (before someone says "why didn't Optimus use that to fix himself?" it's never been used in the movies to repair, just infuse Energon.)

3.) I still can't get over the language. The Autobots were funny, but the language was just a bit too much, especially for them. I would say as far as bad language goes for the series, this film takes the cake.

4.) The Autobots fighting amongst themselves seemed like it was meant to be funny, but it just came across as mean in an already rather mean film. I didn't exactly care for it.

None of this ruins the film for me, or changes my grade on it, but they were thoughts that have been rattling around in my head.

Crap. One more thing. Thomas Lennon's cameo. Loved it! Granted, he's used to playing mousey characters with a shiver in his voice, but he was funny and fit this so well. I would like to see him return for the next one.

 

So I haven't seen it yet (Paramounts being a huge dick to us here in Japan and making us wait a whole f*ing month and a half!), but can anyone tell me how many Dinobots were actually in the movie?

I'm on the fence about Slash, and kind of want to skip it, but if he's in the movie I guess I'll have to pick him up...

 

The only Dinobots in the movie are Grimlock, Slug, Strafe, and Scorn. So, only four; no Slash.

 

My Feedback on TF4

Age of Extinction was pretty good i think- mainly because they didn't have to waste time adjusting the Autobots to earth's customs, they made their personalities more human-like, relatable, and entertaining, and Optimus can finally fly on his own (something i personally hoped for).

Plus, i always hoped that Prime would finally snap and lose his temper with the humans, the war, just everything going on in the movie-verse: And he finally did.

The previous 3 flims, all he cared about was peace- he was all about protecting life and avoiding battle whenever possible- and this time his approach completely changed. He basically went from "We must learn from and protect the humans, we cannot allow them to pay for our mistakes, blah blah blah i'm all about peace and other boring bulls---" to "Alright, that's it- i've almost died twice for this borderline-******ed planet, i'm sick of this crap, so let's get some dinobots and kick ass!!"

Does a lot of the content in the movies really make sense? Nope.
Are they awesome cosmetically and action-wise? YES.
Do we get some pretty awesome toys from them? YES. So it's not all bad.

Now, i will agree with those fans who think the plot was garbage and i really think we should all just go ahead and accept the fact that the story will never get any better for the movie-verse- it will always suck- but that's NOT what sells, that's not what people go to see- they go to see the updated graphics and hardcore action- and on that level: We'll never be disappointed.

Shrinking and Color Coding the cast:
Shrinking and color coding the characters, just like the original 1984 animated movie, was a fantastic move. A lot of people who take their kids, siblings, etc to these movies- being non-TF fans- they have no idea what the Hell's going on, so the color coding works for them.

"Who's that guy?"
He's big, he's green, he's got tons of weapons, and frankly that's all you need to know- now shut up and watch the movie. ^_^

That's pretty much my slice of feedback for the film. The plot sucked, as always, but the action was good and we're getting some decent toys from it- so it's not all bad everybody- i think TF5's toyline will be much more impressive and i'm really looking forward to the next version of LC Optimus Prime- hopefully they release a newer, better, more impressive mold of him for TF5. ^_^

 

When Lockdown was locking up Optimus earlier on, the movie did show Grimlock locked in one of the cages (they even showed a close-up of his robot mode face) and Lockdown noted that he had captured the knights. I wish they established their backstory a little more, but they didn't really come out of nowhere as they were at least established as captives on that part of the ship.

 

Lucas had to die. He ain't going to Chicago or Hongkong. He did his job, there's no room left for him in later plot. 3 is the magic number - Dad, daughter, and another guy.

Seeing Ratchet's head melted down is sad, I assume it was in the plot for a reason, which was to fuel anger, that triggered Optimus and bots storming in KSI place looking for blood. Plot wise it make sense.

What didn't make sense to me, was the scan technology. Old rusty antenna gone Optimus scanned a new truck, and is all new inside and out. Megatron also scanned a truck (after ROTF), still half head missing? Anyway, both died before. If they shrug off death, what's the point questioning minor stuff like missing arm or head, right.

 

Just pointing out the things that I enjoyed
Positives
First half was done really well
Best autobot crew in the movies especially hound.
Bumblebee was toned down and is a side character.
Lockdown
Dinobots
Human cast
Possibilities in sequel.

Negatives
Football death
Music mostly I don't want to hear battle cry 3 times through the movie.
Second half was a bit messy and felt rushed.
Human story was repeated to much.
Needed more time for dinobots.
To long.

 

I found this article interesting. Figured I'd post here rather than making its own thread as it touches upon a lot of criticisms I've seen on TFW.

10 Things We Can’t Believe ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ Got Away With

 

It was the best movie so far. I really loved it. The Autobots, Lockdown, and Galvatron and most of the humans were well done and well acted characters. Even the weakest links (Shane and Tessa) were nowhere near as annoying as Shia. The story had a lot going on in it, but it was really enjoyable if you paid attention.

The Dinobots were fine I thought. Given that they probably have not had access to the internet and have heard only minimal English, it would be weird if they spoke it. Plus I loved Strafe helping out Slug and Bumblebee.

Lockdown's ship was great. It was a lot of fun watching the Autobots and humans trying to rescue Optimus and Tessa.

I loved the opening scene. Even though Psittacosaurus is from the Early Cretaceous, those psittacosaurs were some of the best looking dinosaurs I've ever seen.

I love the possibilities it opens for future movies (Galvatron, the Creators, and the Dinobots).

 

I agree with what this reviewer said about Optimus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39Mky3b62Mg

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