Transformers: Age of Extinction

Writen by CinemaSerf on May 21, 2023

I guess even Michael Bay must have realised that by the fourth outing, this franchise needed refreshing. To that end, the previously long-suffering cast have been allowed to hang up their screwdrivers and a new set of characters have been drafted in. They are led by "Cade" (an enthusiastic Mark Wahlberg). Now he just happens to buy an old truck and it just happens to turn out to be the long lost "Optimus Prime". Of course, there are still agencies hunting for the robots and soon he and daughter "Tessa" (Nicola Peltz Beckham) are on the run from a militia controlled by the manipulative industrialist "Joyce" (Stanley Tucci). Quite why it needs to take 2¾ hours to get to the standard denouement is anyone's guess. Despite the inclusion of some Tyrannosaur-bots, the film has the same relentless predictability as the "Autobots" and "Decepticons" (if you can spot the difference) go through the same repetitively staged combat scenes before an ending that relies unduly on human intervention (oh yes, and lots of sentimentality too) before we essentially start back at square one with the usual "Optimus" monologue concluding the proceedings. This has the added benefit of a truly terrible performance from the always over-rated Kelsey Grammer who had a few, entirely futile, goes at being a cinema baddie and unlike the other films which had a semblance of internationalism to them, this is now an entirely American affair that just bored me. Surely no more...?