Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

[daikaijusaurus]

[jellydonut25]

^That's precisely my point...

Lord of the Rings is three hours long because there's that much story to tell.
Transformers is three hours long because...robot dick jokes.


The 152-minute Dark Knight flies by because it's well-paced, well-acted, well-directed, well-scripted, well-scored and well-structured.
The 150-minute Revenge of the Fallen feels like a root canal because it's just screaming, "sexiness", splosions, and scrote jokes.

[Rodanex]

[Benjamin Haines]

[Rodanex]

What does Michael Bay have to do with any of that?

[XvGojira]

[Benjamin Haines]

[XvGojira]

[O.Supreme]

[Rodanex]

Well, all I can say is that I honestly don't find the Michael Bay Transformers movies to be entertaining. I think each movie is way too long, resulting from poor editing. The dialogue is terrible, the humor is immature and offensive, the robot designs look horrible, the storyline is overly convoluted and illogical, and the action isn't even that well executed. Lots of times there are trees and cars and buildings obscuring what's happening and there's shaky cam making it even more difficult to follow what is happening.

I'd much rather watch Godzilla movies than these films any day of the week. The Godzilla movies may have their flaws, but I don't find myself being constantly irritated by them. Women aren't filmed like they're cars, the monsters don't fart and pee on each other, we don't have monsters designed to resemble NASCAR fans, the storylines and the action scenes are easy to follow. Most of my criticisms of Godzilla movies really boil down to one-dimensional characters and bad special effects, but I don't feel like they're catering to the lowest common denominator. If you enjoy the Michael Bay films, that's fine....I just find it utterly baffling that they are almost unanimously adored on the Seibertron forums. I feel like if Michael Bay had directed the 2014 Godzilla film, I really doubt it would have been as passionately accepted on this forum.

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

Okay, the third Transformers movie was on the other night and out of (morbid) curiosity I watched it...

Ugh.

I wrote a rambling account, but let me sum up: fascist film where all the characters are relentlessly unpleasant, especially the heroes, and of the heroes especially the Autobots who are monsters! The overall tone can be best summed-up as 'mean spirited.' I just kept thinking about how unsuitable this thing is for children. I mean, if I was taking one of my nephews to rent some movies at the library and he came to the checkout with Carpenter's The Thing and Transformers 3 I'd say, "sorry, little fella. One of these ain't for kids" take Transformers back and bring him a copy of Evil Dead II saying "this is more your speed."

In short: Ash, ten-thousand times a better role-model for kids than Optimus Prime.

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

[Rodanex]

That's exactly how I felt about that movie. But if you go over to Seibertron.com, all the fanboys will defend it saying, "Well Sentinel and the Decepticons were killing humans, so they deserved it. Was Optimus just supposed to forgive them?"

I mean....an old man is begging for mercy, and Optimus just ruthlessly shoots him in the head (and you're right, it's very graphic). I have a hard time accepting an Optimus Prime that snarls out lines like, "We will kill them all!" "You...DIE!!!" Or how about when the Wreckers gleefully ripped a Decepticon apart? You never really get any sense that these "heroic" Autobots are feeling any bit of regret about all this violence; they seem to be really enjoying it. You've got characters like Superman where they're forced to use violence, but they have a certain moral code about it, and it's clear that they'd rather be finding more diplomatic solutions. That's why those characters are heroic and inspiring. There's nothing heroic or inspiring about watching a robot with a beer gut and a mullet happily tearing another robot limb from limb. Obviously there are characters like Wolverine or Spawn that don't fall into that category, but I don't think the Autobots work well as gritty antiheroes.

I felt dead inside after watching that movie. The way people applauded in the theater after the movie concluded was just sickening.

[Benjamin Haines]

[MekaGojira3k]

I love Murdermus Prime. He's hilarious.

Although AOE is so boring. Jeeezus. It's almost as incoherent as Revenge of the Fallen.
At least it gave me some cool Dinobot toys.

[Rodanex]

[lhb412]

It's totally strange how the Bayformers films have carved out a niche where they are above reproach because it's just accepted that they're horrible. Bay can get away with being racist, sexist, homophobic, and fascist with no repercussions!

[Benjamin Haines]

[ultrazilla2000]

Some of you guys are so overly dramatic about these movies that it's cracking me up. "Felt dead inside"...LOL! Really?

Don't take it so seriously...it's mindless entertainment (for some). For myself, I think I liked the Dark of the Moon best, but this new one was OK. I definitely enjoyed the new cast and less lame humor, but the story was just as nonsensical (is that a word?) as Revenge of the Fallen. What was all that mumbo jumbo about the "Knights" on the alien ship? Prime was a "Knight"? What was up with all the swords? And exactly who/what were the Dinobots? So many ideas that went nowhere. And if people had issues with Prime's violence in the past...LOL, it's nothing compared to this movie! "I WILL KEEEEEL YOU!!!" I laughed out loud so many times when he would yell that. But oh well...I had fun.

[Legion]

The one thing that bothers me most about these pathetic movies is how it perfectly illustrates how braindead the mainstream movie audience is.

[O.Supreme]

[Alpha OTS]

I'm on board with Doug Walker's and his alter-ego Nostalgia Critic's review of AoE.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videol ... sformers-4

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videol ... sformers-4

These movies are all exactly the same. In fact, Red Letter Media had a recent segment where Mike, Jay and Rich watch the first three Bayformer movies simultaneously and make a very illustrative point about how these movies *are* pretty much exactly the same. They hit the same beats at the same time.

http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-b ... rs-series/

That said, that's what I think of AoE. Its more of the same, and its long. The bots are pretty much insignificant to the plot, so their characterization means very little to the story. There are no bot character arcs that change anything, and too often the bots feel like Warner Brother cartoon characters rather than rational sentient beings. I didn't hate the movie, but as a Transformer fan I've had enough of this teasing and having to read into things that really aren't there. Its like Bay asks for characters and plot points from the mythos, gets a short bullet point list, and that's as far as it goes.

And I'm still ticked about the dinobots. If you saw the trailer, you saw pretty much 90% of their involvement and story significance. I find it frustrating that we didn't even get a frickin' "Me, Grimlock!". Grrr....

[ebirahsmeg1]

Redlettermedia will most likely be reviewing this "film" later this week . In the meantime, they reviewed the first 3 of Bay's "masterpieces....at the same time (shudders):



Can't wait to see how Bay and Co. kill another beloved 80s cartoon of mine when TMNT comes out later this year....