There’s no way to sugarcoat it, so I’ll get this out of the way, Michael Bay’s latest Transformers flick “Transformers: Age of Extinction” is not the greatest film in the series. In fact, it’s not even in second or third.
That being said, this fourth installment and supposed reboot of the series, is not a horrible movie if you judge it for what it is — a summer blockbuster.
Taking place five years after the Battle of Chicago, the human story has now shifted to Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a struggling inventor who unknowingly happens upon an injured Optimus Prime while collecting scraps for his inventions.
The world is now a different place for autobots, who are being hunted and killed by an elite CIA unit. So, before long Yeager, who has now been labeled a traitor to mankind is on the run from the CIA, along with his goofy assistant (T.J. Miller), his daughter (Nicola Peltz), and her boyfriend (Jack Reynor).
While on the run, they discover the true purpose of the covert CIA unit, to break down the autobots for spare parts. These spare parts are being used by a corporation name KSI that is working to build its own autobots.
From this point the film turns into one big action sequence that spans multiple continents. It turns out the head of KSI (Stanley Tucci) has a bit of a conscience, and the head of the CIA operation (Kelsey Grammer) doesn’t. The whole film is wrapped up with a cliffhanger, which unfortunately isn’t necessarily wanted.
With a running time of nearly 3 hours its major flaw is not knowing when enough is enough. While the action sequences are part of what made the franchise successful, you can have too many, and this film does.
However, if you’re a fan of the Transformers series, it’s good enough. It’s by no means the best, but as a transitional film in the series, it will do.
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…just for fun:
