Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Eh... at least it had Ken Watanabe.  It really did!

Since I have no idea what happened in Transformers: Dark of the Moon, it was like watching a whole new Transformers franchise.  I am a fan of the animated series that aired when I was a kid but not much of the live action movies because of the human cast.  The robots are great.  I even have a friend who "confessed" that she thought that Optimus Prime is "hot".  And she meant in semi-truck form.


Yeah.  I don't even know.

But Optimus Prime is pretty cool.  I've always liked him and Bumblebee and his unassuming and naughty demeanor.  Until Ken Watanabe's Drift came along.  Yes, he became my new favorite because of Watanabe-san.  And he reminded me of Tekken's Yoshimitsu.

The other bots are just fantastic.  If they can do away with the humans in these movies, I might like them more.  The problem with this installment is the romantic BS they felt they had to inject.  Mark Wahlberg plays Cade Yeager (insert all Pacific Rim jokes here) and he is a Stu Pickles-like inventor in the middle of nowhere Texas.  He has a 17-year-old brat named Tessa (Nicola Peltz).  Throughout the movie, she's this useless little bitch who cared nada for her dad and obsessed over her Liam Hemsworth look alike boyfriend, Shane (Jack Reynor).  A word of note to all females cast in any Transformers movie, throw yourself in the way of two bots next time; y'all of practically useful only to annoy the audiences.

Cade then happens to come across a rundown Mater-like truck that lay abandoned in a condemned building.  And yay, it's Optimus Prime in "disguise".  As Mater.  LOL.  He then uses that energy-sapping trick they do to transform into that sexy semi-truck again.  Calling all Autobots... Aaah, it gets me going every time!

My problem with it... or should I say, PROBLEMS, are writing, editing, and humans.  In pretty much that order.  All of the stuff they gave to the Yeager side of the story was cringe-worthy.  That made the acting not convincing and painful to watch.  The Tessa character, omg... just... I was happy when her part was reduced to almost nothing towards the end.  I didn't mind Shane because he was just... there.  And he looked like a Hemsworth brother.

What is it with these women in action movies anyway?  Their nail polish stay pristine; they don't sweat; they don't get bruises after being banged up in concrete, glass, and hard dirt.  Naomi Watts rolled around in the forest in King Kong but her dress remained relatively clean.  Tessa's hair flew this way and that but still fell nicely around her shoulders.  I'd be lucky to have my hair flat down on my head after a strong gale.

But I digress.

The editing made my head hurt.  OMG.  Maybe because it had too many fillers that scene changes seemed irrelevant to each other or done very poorly. The first part was worse than the second half.  It was choppy.  It got better towards the end because the storylines merged into one or two.

The Dinobots were... what were they for?  Optimus Prime had a ROTK!Aragorn moment while riding Grimlock.  "Fight for me, and I will hold your oaths fulfilled," type of thing.  They all came out of nowhere and yeah.  That was it.  Galvatron/Megatron is still pretty stupid, by the way.

Transformers: Age of Extinction was needlessly long.  Michael Bay got a wee bit carried away with all the Michael Bay-isms.  I felt the urge to exclaim "Michael Bay!" at every explosion... which I think I did.  If the guy is known for one thing, it's explosions.


(Yes.  That is a Miley Cyrus gif on my blog.  Feel free to take a cleansing shower afterwards.)

Anyway.  It was long.  I'm no stranger to 3-hour movies but LOTR and Marvel stuff are pretty much exceptions to every rule.  This one made me tired with all the bot fighting and destruction of China and explosions. Which would've been okay if not for the stupid breaks that had the human characters spew out some stupid "No, Daddy. I love him and I hate you" bull shit.  That got old so fast.

A 5th one is confirmed.  That means more Optimus Prime and more Bee.  But Primus forbid, more Tessa?  Please, no.  Send her off to college and may we never hear from her again.

Although, I have a sinking feeling that her college car will be Bumblebee.  DX