"Transformers: Age Of Extinction" - - Really, dude? Transformium?

It probably won't surprise any of my regular readers that I'm a fan of Michael Bay's "Transformers" series. Now, before you hipsters choke on your $100 scarfs, first let me say this: Why is it that people who hate "Transformers" seemed to love "Pacific Rim?" They're the same movie, except in "Transformers" I can actually see what is going on instead of watching two . . .somethings wrestle 10 miles beneath the ocean surface. They both have the same flaws (awful humor, boring "character" development). So why does "Pacific Rim" get a pass.

*I think you should know how bad this movie is if I'm comparing it to Pacific Rim, but let's continue on anyways.





"Transformers 4: Age of Extinction" . . .first off, let me also say this: At my local cinema on opening night they have a trivia contest. I smashed the other nerds, winning 5 free movie passes and two popcorns.

*I really don't want to write this review . . .

"Transformers 4: Age of Extinction" was the cinematic equivalent of being mugged. Sure, it may be an exciting experience for some, you hope you only have to live through once , and the best case scenario is that all you lose is your money.

In the worst case, you'll suffer brain damage due to traumatic injuries.

Taking place a few years after the events of "Transformers: Dark Of The Moon," the US government has decided to cut ties with the Autobots and sends a CIA team headed up by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) to hunt down the Decepticons themselves. Fraiser hates all Transformers, so he just decides to hunt them all down, friend and foe. For the kids in the audience, there's a delightful scene where an Autobot pleads for his life ("I'm an Autobot, I'm a good guy!"), has his heart ripped out, and his face melted off. I'm guessing that action figure will meet many a BIC lighter this summer.

Anyways, Attinger is selling *groan* "Transformium" (i.e. melted Autobot skin) to a Steve Jobs parody played by Stanley Tucci. Using Transformium, they build their own army of Transformers to fight in wars for the United States. But don't worry, folks! These Transformers will be piloted by humans, so there's no way this could go badly. Except for the fact that they use Megatron's head as a blueprint, a Decepticon scientist to get it all hooked up, and don't seem terribly worried that their homemade Transformer's head constantly transformers itself to look like Megatron.

To add to the trifecta of bad decisions, robot hating Attinger decides to form an alliance with a intergalactic bounty hunter named Lockdown who is also a Transformer of unknown affiliation. How they met is never explained. Grindr, maybe? The CIA is constantly reassuring the president everything is under control as Lockdown's ship hovers over Chicago. Who needs Edward Snowden when you can just crane your neck up and see the CIA's top secret program shit Autobots down on to the street?

Ok, so you might have noticed that I haven't really even gotten to the plot yet. All of the above, that's just the setup for the story of  Cade Yager, his hot daughter and professional screamer Tessa, and her race car driving boyfriend Shane teaming up with the Autobots to save the world from Lockdown and Galvatron, either though neither of them wants to do anything too exciting. Lockdown wants to put Optimus in a space zoo and Galvatron wants to spread his "Seed" over the biggest city on earth.

Yes, Galvatron spends the last half hour of the moving saying "Where is my Seed!" "Bring me my Seed!" and "Release my Seed in the biggest city on Earth!" And the whole time I could only think of Galvatron blowing a load all over Beijing.



Lockdown has has the Seed, but Galvatron wants it to make Transformium, and Attinger wants it to make Transformium, but wants to make it in the desert and Galvatron wants to make it in the city, and Lockdown just wants to get Optimus, and the whole time (nearly 3 hours) this is going on we are stuck with the most annoying cast of characters to ever grace a Transformers movie, and that's saying alot.

We have a Japanese Autobot complete with a yellow face and all the racial sensitivity you would expect from a Jeff Dunham stand up special. An Australian robot who is constantly complaining and kicking Bumblebee's ass, a fat robot who smokes live rounds of ammo without pulling a Kurt Cobain every 5 seconds, and Bumblebee himself, who seems to have taken it upon himself to out Jar-Jar Jar-Jar by being the most irritating CGI character created. I think what made Bumblebee's character bearable in the first trilogy was his "pet dog" relationship with Sam. Here's he's just a boombox who thinks "robots in disguise" means "jeopardize your mission by getting jealous and beating up a statue."

And Optimus? He's a revenge fueled, bitter veteran who swears death on a 180lb 50 year old man. And he does actually kill him with a massive laser cannon, stabs another Transformer in the back and slices him in half before uttering the phrase: "Honor to the end."

Wait, what? Who are you referencing? Hopefully not you!

"Transformers 4" is a three hour long version of the last 20 minutes of "Return Of The King." Just when you think it's over something else happens that adds a whole other location/cast of characters to the film. Eventually your brain just stops working, beaten to a pulp by bright CGI and audio effects cranked up so loud every time a car peeled out the entire theater turned into a giant vibrator.

I realized that I truly had suffered brain damage when the movie ends with the typical scene of Optimus giving a little speech about team work and protecting people, then he just flies away and flies into space and tells the audience that he is going to fly around in space looking for his Creators, the people who ran the space zoo. And I got up from my my seat and left the theater and walked home, crawled into bed, woke up, went to work the next day and thought "Wait . . .Optimus can't fly!"

For me, I have to say that even though this movie was better than "Revenge of the Fallen," I enjoyed that film more, making this film, so far, the weakest of the series.

"Transformers: Age of Extinction" tries to be both a reboot and a sequel and fails on multiple levels on both counts. The characters are flat and the plot is messy But the action is fun and it's definitely a big screen film. If you're a fan of the franchise, or just need to hide in an air conditioned theater for three hours from the police, you could do worse.