Transfomers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Certified: 12A
Duration: 165 minutes
Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, Titus Welliver
Voices of: Peter Cullen, Frank Welker, John Goodman, Ken Watanabe, Robert Foxworth
KRS Releasing Ltd
Michael Bay returns with the fourth Transformers movie and it is as over the top as ever. With the barest of scripts and minimum acting, he delivers a show-stopping film . I can safely say that there has never been a movie like this one. Fans of action sequences, special effects and hi-tech gizmos will surely be left breathless.
The film is set three years after the events of the last instalment (2011) when Chicago was left in ruins. The Transformers have since been driven out of the city and are now considered enemies by the government.
In Texas, mechanic Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) brings in an old truck, unaware that this truck is none other than Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots.
He is soon visited by a secret government agency led by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), and Cade, his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) and her boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor) barely manage to escape. They flee with Optimus Prime, who manages to reunite the Autobots. The news is that Attinger and the very rich Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), have managed to develop the organic metal that makes the Transformers what they are. The result is their own Transformer, named Galvatron, that has been designed using Optimus Prime as template. Meanwhile, there are other issues: a Tranformer bounty hunter called Lockdown, a lethal bomb and an infection that has been left by the bits and pieces of Megatron.
The Transformers movies have never been aimed at the critic or at the filmgoer who wants to see the latest Oscar winner. In Bay’s movies, sound and special effects are what matter most and he simply likes to blow things up on screen in the most spectacular manner.
This film seems to mark a fresh start as well with Wahlberg delivering the right kind of performance that makes him an even better human conduit than Shia La Beouf ever was in the previous movies.
On the robot front, there are now the Dinobots, dinosaur-looking robots that are awesome and silly at the same time.
The setting is now China, showing how much this franchise is becoming more and more of an international one. The film features the destruction of Hong Kong, breathtaking chase sequences, a ship that flies through the air and an incredible sequence with Wahlberg on the run that is simply breathtaking. The design of the robots and the sound of their parts revving together is simply thrilling.
Transformers: Age of Extinction is the epitome of popcorn-munching and soft drink-guzzling summer blockbuster extravaganza whose natural home is the big screen.