After vowing not to return for another stint as director in the Transformers franchise, Michael Bay returns as director for another stint in the Transformers franchise. With the majority of the original cast missing and the inclusion of A-Lister Mark Wahlberg, Transformers: Age of Extinction is… exactly the same as the first three.
Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg, who without even being nominated yet will win the Razzie for the worst character name in a film) is a struggling inventor who has a daughter that looks strikingly similar to the girl in Transformers 3 (Nicola Peltz, as seen in Bates Motel). He buys a truck for parts, only to find that this aint no ordinary truck; it’s none other than Optimus Prime. Then the rest of the remaining Transformers are hunted down by the Government who still hate them after they’ve saved Earth three times.
If it doesn’t seem like a lot of effort was put into that synopsis, it’s because it wasn’t. You know the story by now, and that’s because these films aren’t made for the narrative. Explosions! Fire! Blurs of metal! All present and frequent. Wahlberg is a bizarre casting choice, and for most of the mammoth 165 minute runtime he’s either confused or angry. Peltz is the generic damsel in distress who is unable to do anything for herself, and in another strange casting of a bigger star than the film deserves is Kelsey Grammer as the villain.
Look, I’m not gonna waste any more of my time telling you whether you should see it or not. If you’re a fan of the previous ones, the probability of you watching this is high regardless of what I or anyone else says. You know what you’re getting yourself in for, and you allow it to happen to your senses.
Good luck.