"A new era has
begun. The age of the Transformers is over…"
Oh, where to even begin with this movie. We might as well
start with the plot, such as it is. Transformers: Dark of the Moon concluded with the heroic Autobots repelling a Decepticon
invasion that left Chicago devastated and 1200 humans dead. Age of Extinction picks up five years
later as the American government has cut all ties with the Autobots. CIA agent
Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) heads up an off-the-books operation that
involves hunting down all Transformers, regardless of whether they are Autobots
or Decepticons. The robots are harvested for parts and shipped to Joshua Joyce
(Stanley Tucci), the brilliant head of a technological conglomerate. Joyce has
discovered an unstable metal dubbed "Transformium," which he and
Attinger plan to use to create their own army of Transformers. In order to
gather more of the metal, Attinger has struck an alliance with the bounty
hunter Lockdown (Mark Ryan). In exchange for capturing Optimus Prime (Peter
Cullen), Lockdown will give Attinger the Seed, a terraforming device that would
create Transformium.
In Texas, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) is a down-on-his-luck
inventor who is struggling to pay the mortgage on his farm and send his
daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz), to college. He purchases a rundown semi-truck
hoping to find something salvageable. The exasperated Tessa can only remark
that he's just turning junk into other junk, which could be a perfect metaphor
for this entire franchise. The truck turns out to be Optimus Prime and his
presence alerts a CIA strike team led by the remorseless Savoy (Titus
Welliver). Now classified as fugitives, Optimus and the few remaining Autobots
must protect their new human allies.
The human protagonists from the previous movies are gone and
forgotten with nary a fleeting reference. Not that the new characters are an
improvement, they are all just as bland and uninteresting. Sure, Mark Wahlberg
is a better protagonist than Shia LaBeouf, but his being an inventor bears no
little impact on the plot. He never invents anything to defeat the Decepticons,
he just grabs an alien gun and shoots stuff. On the other hand, producers are
wise enough to fill the supporting cast with actors like Stanley Tucci, Kelsey
Grammer, and Titus Welliver to lend some legitimacy to the ridiculousness.
Grammer and Welliver play standard issue cardboard villains, but Tucci has fun
hamming it up as an evil Steve Jobs. If you didn't get that reference, there's
a black and white portrait of Tucci in a turtleneck sweater hanging prominently
in the background.
As Michael Bay's latest ingénue, Nicola Peltz isn't given
any opportunity to differentiate herself from Megan Fox or Rosie
Huntington-Whiteley. Peltz is dressed in cutoff shorts just like Fox and even
uses a tow truck to assist the Autobots during the climax. There are plenty of
shots from between her legs as the camera leers at her thighs and buttocks. The
way Michael Bay fetishizes Peltz feels dirty when you consider that her
character is 17, despite the actress being 19 in real life. However, that's
nothing compared to the sequence in which Bay justifies statutory rape. Tessa's
boyfriend, Shane (Jack Reynor), a 20-year old Irish race car driver, pulls out
a copy of a "Romeo & Juliet" law allowing the two of them to be
together since they dated before he turned 18. Yes, one of the heroes in Age of Extinction, is a creep who
carries around a photocopy of a law that allows him to have sex with an
underage girl. In a film about giant robots from outer space, why is this
subject even being broached?
Congratulations to Michael Bay for hitting all new lows
though the usual trademarks of a Bay production are present here. We have the
rampant misogyny represented by the fact that nearly every female character in
the movie is thin and impossibly gorgeous. The only exception is the sassy,
overweight black woman who serves as comic relief. Aside from Peltz, the only
other actresses who receive any significant screen time are Sophia Myles as a
geologist and Li Bingbing as an executive in Joyce's employ. They are just as
one-note as everybody else in the whole series and both women appear and
disappear whenever it's convenient for the plot. Li Bingbing's inclusion and an
entire third act set in Hong Kong is a blatant attempt to pander to Chinese
audiences, who have become increasingly vital to the wallets of studio
executives. The product placement throughout Age of Extinction is equally forced with actors shoving Bud Lights
and Beats speakers into your face in full IMAX 3D. One would think Bay was
doing this with a hint of irony, but it's hard to tell anymore. Next, we have
racist caricatures in the form of Drift (Ken Watanabe), an Autobot modeled
after a samurai who speaks in Haikus composed of broken English.
Just as he couldn't be bothered to come up with unique
personalities for the humans, screenwriter Ehren Kruger couldn't be bothered to
do anymore with the Autobots. Hound (John Goodman) fulfills the exact same role
as Ironhide that of the grizzled war veteran while Bumblebee gets surprisingly
little screen time given his popularity. Lockdown is the most interesting
villain in the series, a Transformer who owes no allegiance to either the
Autobots or Decepticons. He works for the mysterious Creators (the
Quintessons?) who originally built the Transformers as slave labor. Also, long-time fans might be pleased to hear
Frank Welker return to voice Megatron who has now been upgraded to Galvatron
ala Transformers: The Movie. The
designs of the Transformers have also been improved so that the viewer can
actually differentiate one robot from the other. The biggest additions to the
robotic roster are the fan-favorite Dinobots. Prepare for Devastator-sized
disappointment, folks, you will have to wait over two hours into the movie
before the Dinobots appear, despite them serving as lynchpins of the marketing
campaign.
If you're wondering how Kruger spent his time during the
script writing process, it certainly wasn't crafting scintillating dialogue. Nobody
was expecting David Mamet in a Transformers picture, but you'd
think Kruger would at least put a modicum of effort beyond, "Take that bitch" or "Do you have a warrant?" "My
face is my warrant." And it's always thrilling to hear Optimus Prime,
the noble warrior that he is, running around rooftops screaming, "I'll kill you."
SPOILERS: At the
end of the movie, Optimus shoots off into outer space with the aid of rocket
boosters in his feet, which begs the question why didn't he use them before,
instead of turning into a truck to slowly save the day? Also, he threatens to
kill the Dinobots unless they join forces with him. Then, Optimus lets them
loose on the Chinese countryside because it's always a great idea to have
mechanical dinosaurs running around completely unfettered.
Story has never been Michael Bay's strong suit. It's
traditionally been incidental to the visuals. The last three films suffered
from action sequences that descended into incoherent visual noise, but Bay's
camerawork seems to grown more patient in Age
of Extinction. This allows Bay to make good use of 3D imagery, particularly
during a set piece wherein the Cade and Tessa dangle precariously from
grabbling cables high above Chicago, a city which shows no evidence of serving
as ground zero for an alien invasion a few short years ago. Bay takes a page
out of Terrence Malick's playbook by shooting the farm scenes at golden hour
with actors silhouetted against the backdrop of a beautiful orange sky. The
beauty is almost undone when you realize Bay's idea of small town Texas is a
Bostonian, a surfer dude, an Irishman, and a girl who struts around the rural
countryside in high heeled boots.
Transformers: Age of
Extinction runs two hours and forty-five minutes, a punishing length filled
with inane dialogue, illogical plot developments, and relentless stupidity. Revenge of the Fallen still stands as
the worst of the bunch, but it has the excuse of being rushed into production
during the writer's strike. Age of
Extinction has no excuse. However, none of that will mean a damn thing
because audiences still eat these movies up with a spoon. The fourth Transformers film scored over $300
million worldwide during opening weekend. If you enjoy Transformers, then more power to you. Personally, I find it sad
that this is a resounding success while Edge
of Tomorrow, a far better written blockbuster with one of the strongest
female characters in recent memory, was a box office flop.
Rating: ** (*****)
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