Date Released: June 27th, 2014
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, TJ Miller, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Peter Cullen (voicing Optimus Prime), Frank Welker (voicing Galvatron), Mark Ryan (voicing Lockdown), John Goodman (voicing Hound), John DiMaggio (voicing Crosshairs), Ken Watanabe (voicing Drift)

    Having solidly entrenched itself as a blockbuster movie series, Transformers has now officially gone beyond the "trilogy" expected of most sci-fi movies and is now firmly entrenched for the foreseeable future as a viable "ongoing" series of flicks. That's not to say that Age of Extinction simply sticks to what Dark of the Moon did and ups the ante again, like the last two movies; rather, this movie changes some things, some for the better, and some for the worse (but mostly for the better).
    First, let's start off with a basic summarization of the plot. Of course, since this is a movie review, there will be moderate spoilers ahead, but nothing that should ruin any of the major plot twists of the movie, should you be worried about that. After the Battle of Chicago in Dark of the Moon, the U.S. has cut all ties with ALL Transformers, Autobot and Decepticon (it may not make sense at the beginning why they're after the Autobots after we were helped by them for so long, but you get an adquate explanation as to why by the end of the first act), and at the lead is an organization called "Cemetary Dawn", headed by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer). This organization is hunting them-- along with a mysterious new Transformer adversary named Lockdown. The plot focus shifts about halfway through the movie from the U.S. to China, and a mysterious artifact simply referred to as "The Seed". Megatron has been reborn as Galvatron via a method I won't get into too much here, and now has his own plot to throw into the mix in addition to Lockdown's true reasons for helping the humans.
    Let's get the negatives out of the way now-- firstly, it's hard for me to accurately score the plot of this movie in my final rating. Much moreso than any of the previous three movies, this is not an almost entirely stand-alone tale. The movie doesn't end in a huge cliffhanger or anything like that-- there's a definite resolution at the end-- but there's some stuff involving "The Creators" that is clearly left open for the sequel, and the Dinobot's origins are barely touched upon. Apparently the Dinobots were originally going to be used for the fifth movie, but because of various reasons were put into this one. It shows that they were, relatively speaking, "tacked on", though-- they only show up in about the last half-hour of the movie, and none of them do anything except growl and roar. Don't expect any "Me Grimlock" lines here, folks (in fact, they aren't even named in the movie at all). There are a few hiccups here and there, though-- for one, the idea of a company designing car Transformers for civilians is just inexcusably dumb, no way around that. The explanation behind Megatron's "chromosones" still being alive in his head was pretty weird and weak, too. Overall, I was wondering whether to give the plot a (relatively) low score because it's not entirely self-contained and some major gaps are still left, but those gaps could easily (and probably) will be picked up to some extent in the next movie, so I eventually decided to stick with a fairly high score for the plot. If the next movie doesn't expand upon the plot threads that need expanding upon with this movie, than TF5's plot score will suffer when the time comes, not this movie's.
    The movie also just plain goes on too long. It's still a pretty engaging ride, but 2 hours and 45 minutes (2 1/2 hours if you don't include the credits) is a pretty lengthy ride. 15-20 minutes of the movie could be cut easily without ruining any major plot points-- more specifically, early in Hong Kong when it's just the human characters fighting, it just goes on for a bit too long. There's also an action scene very close to the end involving Lockdown using his ship's tractor beam on Hong Kong, but although visually stimulating, it admittedly doesn't do anything for the plot, and it's far enough into the movie where I could see your average movie-goer getting a bit antsy for the ending to arrive. Even with this length, it's obvious a few scenes got cut, as a few minor threads are never picked up upon. There's a scene where Jack Reynor's character Shane is caught at KSI (a robotics company headed by Stanley Tucci's character who is in the process of making their own controllable Transformers). Bumblebee wasn't too happy with Stinger, a "better" copy of him, being used by KSI, and so knocked the prototype over-- the loud sound, of course, attracting undue attention. The manager comes by after BB's transformed back into vehicle mode and tells Shane angrily to come to his office, but that's never followed up upon. There's also a really cool scene near the end where the Dinobots and a few of the "normal" Autobots transform and stand by to guard the only entryway into the final battle, but they're never shown actually engaging anybody afterwards. The odd cuts aren't all that common, though, and probably won't even be noticed by most until after repeated viewings. Some have complained about all the products advertised, but for the most part they're in the background and don't bother me int the least. Two bits are the exception-- one involving a Bud Light truck crashing and Cade Yeager taking a swig of one of the bursting-open bottles feels a bit too forced. There's also one awesome slow-motion action scene that very obnoxiously puts the back of a bus advertising Victoria's Secret RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of the screen, actually BLOCKING some robot-on-robot action for a few seconds-- that one got on my nerves, though again, it's there for like five seconds.

    There's a lot of things this movie improves upon, though. Usually in the past movies, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and to a lesser extent Megatron and one other movie-specific character would get a fair number of lines, and the rest of the TFs would have just a couple of lines at best and otherwise just be in the background during fight scenes for support. Not so with this movie-- although the Dinobots don't get much (if any) characterization, the other "new" guys-- Hound, Drift, Crosshairs, Galvatron, and Lockdown-- definitely have a pretty good amount of screen time and each has some pretty cool moments, becoming much more than background hero/villain fodder. Hound in particular, voiced by John Goodman, is a fantastic character with a lot of great, quotable lines. Using every weapon at his disposal and smoking a "cigar", he's a one-man wrecking crew and he knows it. Crosshairs' behavior is surprisingly Decepticon-ish for an Autobot, but he still fights the good fight in the end, and loves what he's doing. Drift gets a bit less characterization than the others-- "honorable samurai" essentially explains his character to a tee-- but he's still fun and gets in some good screen presence. (This movie definitely has the most quotable lines out of any in the series so far.) Seeing all of the Autobots-- particularly Optimus-- so desperate at the beginning of the movie, being hunted as they are, that they're at each other's throats. This is a bit off-putting at first, but they eventually learn to work together and it's neat to see a bit of development there. Galvatron is (finally!) voiced by the one and only Frank Welker, who puts any fears that he's too old to do the role anymore to rest, using his slightly deeper, more threatening Megatron voice from the "Prime" series-- although he has relatively little development compared to the other new guys, the acting is great, and there's some great setup for the next movie from him. Lockdown is probably my favorite new character in the movie, and is just plain awesome in just about every scene he's in. He has a purpose, and his focus on it is pretty intense. He's also quite dismissive of nearly everyone else, and rightfully so, given how good he is at his job. Definitely the best villain in the movie series, and there's certainly enough nods to his Animated self where it doesn't just feel like a name re-use like, say, Sideswipe from the previous two movies. The final fight scene between him and the others is also VERY well-done and brings together many of the plot threads and themes throughout the movie in a satisfying, approrpriately reciprocal manner. The focus is also shifted off of Bumblebee a bit for this movie compared to the previous three, which is a good choice-- he's still simply using radio clips for talking, and there's only so much you can do with that.
    All of this is not to say that the main human characters aren't at least decently developed, either. Mark Wahlberg's character Cade Yeager makes for a much more compelling lead than Shia LaBeouf, with the main human "B-plot" focusing on him not letting his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) go off on the life she wants to lead with her recently-discovered boyfriend, despite the fact that she's proven to be "mostly" responsible as a 17-year old. Despite being the signature "eye candy" of the movie, Nicola Peltz's acting is pretty good at times-- not exactly Oscar-worthy, but convincing. Stanley Tucci's character Joshua also makes for a nice "blurred lines" character, at times taking part in bad (but, in a way, understandable) things, but coming around at the end as you'd expect. Kelsey Grammer's character Harold Attinger gives off the best performance, making for a very compelling human villain-- an ex-CIA agent who just wants some recognition and for his country to be safe, but he goes too far. There are a few mis-steps, though. For one, I found Jack Reynor to be a medicore actor at best, and he gets VERY in-your-face and inappropriate (in terms of his tone and what he's saying, not in terms of being crude) to Tessa's dad Cade. This would be fine if he gets knocked down a rung at the end, but apparently them fighting together makes everything okay-- the turnabout face of Cade's reaction to Tessa's "surprise" boyfriend at the end of the movie isn't quite justified, methinks. Another minor character, played by Chinese actress Li BingBing, seems a bit superfluous to the plot and her acting is also pretty medicore compared to the other B-list human characters.
    One other thing that I feel this movie improves upon is the raunchy and/or awkward bits of humor that were a bit too prevalent in the previous movies-- there is pretty much no innuendo at all here, and the humor practically always is actually funny and not awkward at all, though the curses still fly too often for my liking. The VERY few bits that don't fit these descriptors are brief and over within a few seconds. (To give an example, there's these weird googly-eyed drones aboard Lockdown's ship that I suppose are supposed to be funny, but they look incredibly out-of-place in a live action movie, like robotic muppets. Thankfully they're only in about thirty seconds of the film total.) There's still plenty of very violent robot-on-robot action, though, so this still isn't a movie I'd recommend taking kids to.
    As always, the CGI effects are incredible, particularly a surprsingly long (but awesome) segment aboard Lockdown's ship. The Transformers and their transformations look fantastic, the only exception being that when many of the KSI "Transformers" transform, they dissolve into little cubes (due to how they were created), fly through the air, and reform into their other mode, which honestly looks kinda of fake, even if those transformations are brief. The action sequences are incredibly well-done and leave you practically breathless, so Transformers continues to deliver thrills in spades in that respect-- not much new to say here, but this is one wild ride, folks. Steve Jablonsky's musical score is also incredible, and Imagine Dragons' song "Battle Cry" really gets you pumped at certain points, so no complaints whatsoever there.

    Age of Extinction sets a promising future trend for the already great Transformers movie franchise, with considerably better characterization (especially for the Transformers) and humor that is funny and not at all wince-inducing. The action sequences, sounds, and CGI graphics are absolutely insane and incredible as they've always been for this series, and I like that they're now opening up the universe a little more with a couple of obvious loose ends still at the end of the movie. The length, the "tacked-on" feeling of the Dinobots, and a few other minor odd bits or cuts are the only negatives at all, in my opinion. A highly recommended thrill ride-- for teenagers and adults. Kids should still stick to the cartoons.

Plot: 16/20
Characterization: 8/10
Dialogue: 14/15
Action: 22/20
Humor: 14/15
CGI: 13/10
Musical Score: 10/10

Overall Rating: 97/100 ...Wow.

(Pictures from Boxofficemojo.com.)

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