Film Better than the last two, but still not great.
Let me start out by saying this film is a definite improvement over the last two. It got rid of the annoying human characters, the vulgar, pointless humor, and actually focused on the Transformers instead of making them side characters. The visuals and actions scenes were impressive.
That said it still is far from a great or even good film. There was just too much...of everything. Too many characters to focus on. Too many plots to juggle. Too many pointless scenes. Too much action that it began to lose its excitement. Too many cut aways. It was too long despite everything happening it started to drag. You could have edited out twenty-thirty minutes and solved many of these problems. Instead, you are left with a convoluted mess that jumps around without really stopping to breath.
Film A surprisingly more interesting Tranformers film.
At first, I thought it wouldn't be as good as the last two films. I found Ro TF a bit too dragging and Do TM boring in some parts,but surprisingly this film improves on that. While i didn't like the Dinobots that much, Galvatron's and Lockdown's designs instantly caught my attention, especially considering I was convinced by this film into getting their figures. The only real criticism I have of this film is that its a bit too dragging, but otherwise I would give this one a 7/10.
Film 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.