Transformers: Age Of Extinction (2014)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Nicola Peltz

Directed by: Michael Bay
Written by: Ehren Kruger
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Adventure
Rated: PG

If there’s one thing you can expect from a Michael Bay film, it is mayhem – or as often put “Bayhem”. Knock him all you want, but it is undeniable that some of Bay’s worst films have given us some of the best, most heart-racing action sequences seen on screen (i.e. Bad Boys II). So, with the release of the 4^th instalment of the Transformers series, audiences are expecting to take perhaps at least a little excitement and adrenaline from Age Of Extinction – albeit, if nothing else.

However, prepare for utmost disappointment. It seems that Bay is not even good at what he’s good at anymore, because this film is incredibly boring, terribly sluggish, frustratingly samey and just downright awful.

Wahlberg is Cade, an inventor who stumbles across a hidden Transformer after the battle of Autobots and Deceptions levelled Chicago, causing the Transformers to be seen as a ‘threat’ to all humankind. Cade, his daughter Tessa (Peltz) and her boyfriend Shane (Reynor) join alliances with this robot, who turns out to be Optimus – leader of the Transformers – and promise to help defeat the mysterious bounty hunter who seeks to rid of Optimus and his robotic army, much to the despair of the government and their operations.

Stanley Tucci may be the only element of success in this tedious 166 minute nightmare, as Joshua Joyce, leader of the KSI – a company in the midst of creating man-made Transformers to be used for military use. Tucci’s acting is watchable beyond belief, the scenes with him are the best (…of a bad bunch) however the only disappointment here is that a man of such talent would choose a film with this level of disastrousness.

There is nothing in this movie that could offer the smallest level of entertainment to anybody. Even the excessive fighting and banging around couldn’t make the most excitable 11 year old boy bat an eyelid, and there most certainly isn’t any worthy drama or sentiment that could tug at your heart strings. The only thing Age Of Extinction succeeds in doing is forcing you to put your head in your hands and cringe.

Whether it be the dire acting, embarrassing attempts at comedy or unrealistic CGI action sequences, it is hard to tell exactly what makes this film nosedive so much. It could also be the issue that the only female role is an objectified damsel-in-distress figure. Maybe it’s the dreadful plot and script offered by Kruger, or perhaps it’s the amateur direction and odd camera angles once again provided by Bay. In truth, the one singular thing wrong with Transfomers: Age Of Extinction is everything.