Age of Extinction

               I know I said the a “Doing It Better” for Green Lantern would be next, but in all honesty I forgot that this was coming out this weekend. And yes, like Godzilla, Transformers aren’t technically superheroes, but Optimus Prime. If I need to say anything more after that they you probably shouldn’t be reading this post.

It takes a special kind of crazy to hunt Primes.

                So, the review. This time around Autobots and Decepticons are being hunted down by a covert ops branch of the CIA known as Cemetery Wind, led by Kelsey Grammer’s Harold Attinger. It's been five years since the last film and America was not happy about the attack on Chicago. While the Autobots were given Amnesty, Attiger has made it his mission to hunt down any Cybertronian refugee, be they Purple or Red. Assisting Attiger is a Cybertronian bounty hunter named Lockdown. At the same time Cade Yeager, played by His Awesomeness Mark Wahlberg, stumbles across a dilapidated semi-truck. Being an inventor and scrap collector he takes the Truck back to his workshop in the hopes of stripping it for parts. To his amazement he finds the truck is outfitted with odd metals and a hell of a lot of ammo. After a little tinkering he re-actives the mighty Optimus Prime.

                After a shootout with Cemetery Wind and Lockdown, Optimus, Yeager, and the really unnecessary tagalongs of Yeager’s daughter Tess and her boyfriend Lucas, must race to discover what Attinger is planning, what Lockdown is planning, and to stop the creation of Vehicon drones at KSI, a weapons company. (Vehicon drones is a term for mass produced and uniform looking Cybertronians, usually allied with the Decepticons. They don’t call them that in the movie but it’s what they are.)

                As always, the good first. The Autobots this time around are fantastic. Each one has a unique design to them so that the odds of replacing one Autobot with a look alike, ala Jazz in #1 being replaced by Sideswipe in #2, are minimum. I bet you didn’t even notice the difference unless you’re my kind of crazy. I especially like the look of Crosshairs, the green Autobot car who uses the parachutes in the trailer. He’s got a duster thing going on with his robot mode and it looks great. Optimus and Bumblebee’s redesigns are also pretty amazing. Optimus as more of an old school knight really works.

Dusters, cool on humans, cool on Transformers. Fact.

Also, the voice acting cast is amazing. We have the always amazing Peter Cullen again as Optimus Prime. He’s a little less optimistic this time around. Watching your soldiers being slaughtered by former allies will do that to a bot. John Goodman also does an amazing job as Hound, a heavy set Autobot who always seems to be smoking a cigar. Which in fact is a live round. Badass. He also has the best lines in the movie. Ken Watanabe is Drift, an Autobot triple-changer that converts into both a car and a helicopter. See, triple-changer? Has three modes, cool right? He often talks in haikus and is overall very Samurai-ie. Next there is John DiMaggio as Crosshairs. While sounding suspiciously like another Autobot from the last film, he’s still pretty awesome too. They also have Frank Welker in as the voice of Galvatron, a human made Transformer prototype. If you don’t know who Frank Welker is look him up, and you’ll see why I don’t want to say too much about him or ol’ Galvy in this no spoilers review. Oh, and Bumblebee still talks through the radio. I was over that in movie 2.

I have a man-crush on him
Not ashamed to admit it.

Mark Wahlberg is a national treasure. When I first heard he was going to be in this movie I thought “Oh great, they are going to use his star power in this film and he’s going to really phone it in.” I couldn’t have been more wrong. He’s charming and witty as ever, and you really believe his speeches about the human race and not letting his daughter date. At least I did. Kelsey Grammer is great as the half crazed CIA agent who is going out of his way to wipe out all Cybertronians. In his mind, the only good alien is a dead one, and at times I half believed it. And of course Stanley Tucci is great as the eccentric inventor and owner of KSI Joshua Joyce. He’s just great, words can’t describe.

The bad, and there are some pretty big ones. First, the Bayisms, they are all here. For those who haven’t noticed, Michael Bay has certain things he needs in his films. They seem to be in every one, at least. First, unnecessary slow-mo. Second, unnecessary close up shots. Third, unnecessary and poorly written romances. Four, kind of a confusing plot, it's like he was given three good ideas and said "Lets use them all!" even though they didn't mesh together well. And of course, an overabundance of explosions. If I missed any other big ones mention them in the comments. He holds off for a bit, but in the third act they are everywhere.

Ol' Galvy is a minor character overall but badass.

The daughter and her boyfriend are pretty bad too. Sam and Michaela in #2 were worse, but still a lot of their screen time felt unnecessary to me. If they wanted to motivate Yeager, just kidnap her in the first act like the trailer was hinting at and move on. Is one Transformers movie with zero over the top teenage romance too much to ask?

Also, the movie’s plot was a little confusing. This was due to the fact we had three evil plots thrown at us and they didn’t necessarily mesh together well. First we had Lockdown’s plot to capture Prime for his mysterious benefactors. Second, we have a combo plot involving the Attiger and Joyce. They want to create an army of Vehicon drones, and of course, make lots of money. Finally, we have one more plot laid by our old buddy Megatron. Not going to go into any detail here, but if you know any of the Transformer’s series you can probably guess what it is by now. The three mix together and get rather confusing.

Always a pleasure Grimlock.

Also, it has things that are just plain weird. Like I guess Optimus is a Cybertronian Knight, as are the Dinobots, but no explanations is given at all. Just, “Hey Optimus is a Knight, and so are the Dinobots. They have a history but all Autobots know it so I don’t need to go into further detail.” Why, I ask you, Why? And for some reason Swoop, the Pteranodon, is renamed Strafe which isn’t so bad I guess but they also give him a second head in dino-mode. No real reason, just has a second head. Oh, and like in the previous movies, they rarely mention Autobot names other than Prime and Bee. Hound is said a few times, Crosshair is called by name like twice, and I don’t think I heard Drift’s name at all. Why? An intro takes five minutes tops. Cut out two slow-mo scenes and one uncomfortable close up of a supposedly 17 year old girl and it’d fit.

Finally, and in my opinion the worst mistake of them all, is that Grimlock never roared “ME GRIMLOCK KING!” You had to do one thing with his character to make me happy, Bay, and you managed to flub it up. Thanks a lot.

Overall I give it a B. It has its good points and its bad points but was still fun to watch. The Transformers look spectacular and overall human involvement in the climax is left to a minimum. At times it’s a little clunky and the Bayisms are very noticeable, but it could have been worse. It’s a good movie and in my opinion the best Transformers yet.

I'd swear fealty to him.

And to be clear, Bay this had better be your last time up to bat and just because you didn’t flub up this movie entirely doesn’t get you off my list. I will mention your name often and with disdain for an unforeseeable amount of time.

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