Theokal3
Since: Jan, 2012
07/23/2014 00:00:00
Agree on about every point. It's by no mean a great movie, and it's still Bay's in the end. But I do give him credit for the effort and making some improvements. In the end I did enjoyed the film despite its flaws; this time my only real complain is that it was overly long at times.
HammerOfJustice
Since: Apr, 2013
09/07/2018 00:00:00
I watched this movie solely for the Dinobots.
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Michael Bay Finally Makes a Proper Transformers Movie
I really enjoyed this movie.
Does this mean that it's a good movie? Kinda. Michael Bay addressed some of the biggest complaints with previous movies (Shia LaBeouf, the Human-Focused Adaptation aspect, the robot designs and the Vulgar Humor), so your enjoyment of this movie will depend on whether you had any other complaints about the Transformers movies.
There are a lot of improvements here. The plot is actually decent this time around, it's good to see the Vulgar Humor used only for Self-Deprecation, and I really enjoyed the Character Development they gave Optimus. Specifically, he jarringly starts out as a bitter Jerkass, but then we find out why, and his friendship with Cade helps him return to his old Big Good self. However, the plot was kinda broken up by the overly long action sequences - the action was spectacular, but it would have been great if the action scenes were shorter. Lockdown and Galvatron were very cool and menacing, and were handled better than the series' previous villains (other than Sentinel). The Dinobots only appeared during the last half-hour or so; I understand that Bay was saving them for the climax and not much else, but he could have done well to flesh out their personalities and their relationship with Optimus.
Speaking of which, that's exactly what he did with the other Autobots, which is one of the strongest points of this movie. Not only does Optimus now essentially share main-character status with Cade, but Bumblebee and newcomers Hound, Crosshairs and Drift all get treated as actual characters this time around, with the newcomers having cool and interesting designs and personalities, and lots of dialogue and interaction - unlike all the "cannon fodder" 'Bots and 'Cons in previous installments. The Autobots share focus with the humans, but even the humans are handled better, with Cade being a supreme Badass Normal, his daughter Tessa's relationship with him being more interesting than the Romantic Plot Tumor of ROTF, and Attinger being a decent human villain.
Age of Extinction is by no means a masterpiece, and it's not for everyone. But it doesn't deserve all the blind hatred critics have been giving it, it's tons better than ROTF, and you have to appreciate how Bay tried making it feel more like Transformers this time.