Two giant robots battle while being carried by a two-headed pterodactyl robot as other giant robots lay waste to China. Debris is everywhere. Mark Wahlberg is falling down the side of a building while being chased by Titus Welliver. It’s all out carnage to the point director Michael Bay gives up on ambient sound and just lets the score play over the top of buses, cars and buildings, exploding into tiny digital bits, all brought to you by Bud Light, Victoria’s Secret and the Beats™ Pill. It’s carnivorous insanity, an image of destruction I never thought possible or could even conjure in my wildest dreams. Suffice to say, Transformers: Age of Extinction is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before on a movie screen and I’m having a hell of a time determining whether that’s a good thing or bad thing, all I know is I never want to see it again.
Complaints over the plot in previous Transformers films is one you won’t have to worry about with this fourth entry into the franchise. The plot is clear, it’s been several years since the events in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which left the city of Chicago a smouldering pile of rubble. Now humans have come to hunt down the remaining Decepticons, but a sinister plan is afoot.
A government agency, led by Kelsey Grammer, has teamed with tech company KS1, headed by Stanley Tucci, to experiment on the alien robots and learn their secrets, and learn they have. Yes, humans have mapped the Transformers genome, discovering a new metal alloy that can transform into whatever you desire. Best part, they haven’t given it some stupid name like Unobtanium or Adamantium, but I won’t ruin that surprise for you here, though it doesn’t take much imagination to figure out what they eventually called it.
So humans have taken to creating their own Transformers and while the public believes all they’ve done are destroy Decepticons, they’ve also taken to hunting Autobots in collaboration with an evil Transformer alien, Lockdown (voiced by Mark Ryan), sent to Earth by “the creators” giving Transformers 4 something of a Prometheus plotline we’re led to believe will be explored further in Transformers 5.
So as a result of this Autobot slaughter, Optimus Prime and a small handful of his fellow Autobots have gone into hiding until one day, failed inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) comes across a beat up semi truck that just so happens to be Optimus Prime, throwing him, his daughter (Nicola Peltz) and his business partner (TJ Miller) into a massive conspiracy that will take them from Texas, to Chicago, aboard an alien Transformer spaceship and eventually to China all in the span of 165 LONG minutes.
All that said, I have to admit, while this film is absolutely the punishing, sensory overload equivalent to pouring a bag of candy down the audience’s throat for two hours and 45 minutes straight, I was engaged the entire time. Yeah, I sneaked a peek at my watch with an hour to go and again with twenty minutes left in the movie, but my response was just as much fatigue as it was absolute awe that Michael Bay still had more to deliver.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is an event movie if there has ever been one and it will beat you into submission. The visual effects are to be marveled as Bay and the digital wizards at ILM have reportedly built this film with a budget of $165 million, which is to say every minute of this picture cost $1 million each. In essence the movie is one big dare, survive it if you can.
For those looking for those typical Bay-isms, don’t worry, they are mostly all here as it takes moving the action to China to eliminate the image of an American flag in every single scene. Beyond that, glaring white light will certainly burn your retinas more than once, the car porn is glorious and he doesn’t forget to deliver the misogyny.
For example, in what is perhaps the most egregious and blatant moment of female objectification I can remember in a Michael Bay film, he sets up a shot from between the legs of Nicola Peltz (who was 18 when the film was shot). All we see is her from behind, from the waist down, wearing very short, cut off jean shorts while Wahlberg makes a comment on his daughter’s attire, drawing added attention to what’s on screen. Only Michael Bay and Zack Snyder can get away with such shots and not reap any negative repercussions. And this is just the most galling example, topping the introductory shot of Rosie Huntington-Whitely from Dark of the Moon.
But what can you say? This is Michael Bay. Transformers: Age of Extinction is Michael Bay and all I can be thankful for is that it isn’t as corny as previous installments. The humor here is more funny than numbing. The action is on par with what you’ve seen in past installments, but the addition of robot dinosaurs is so utterly ridiculous and insane all I could do is stare on, slack-jawed in amazement that what I was seeing was actually on screen. When I saw robot dinosaurs running alongside giant robots that transform into cars along the China wharf all I could do is look on and laugh in wonderment.
As I said, Transformers: Age of Extinction is a movie unlike any I’ve ever seen before and my brain is still throbbing. I feel like the sugar has rotted away my very core. One thing is for certain, there is no one making movies like Michael Bay and no one could have made this movie other than Michael Bay. He lingers too long on shots, he thinks he’s established more drama than he actually has, your connection to the human characters is in no way as deep as he’d like to believe, but when it comes to delivering destruction, car porn, female objectification, bad jokes you actually chuckle at and, again, giant dinosaur robots, there is no one better for the job.
A film like this defies critique. It is too big, too long, too ridiculous and utterly too self-indulgent to sit down and pick apart. Should you see it? Hell, I don’t know, just be prepared when you do and perhaps take a Xanax before walking in the theater or sip some chamomile tea throughout, because calming thoughts and deep breathing techniques are recommended to survive this one.
