Blair LiewThe 4th installation of the Transformers film franchise is the 1st of a reboot trilogy according to director Michael Bay, and brings about countless changes and additions from a new cast to newly designed robots such as the glorious Dinobots.
The human protagonist here is Cade Yeager, played by Mark Wahlberg sans Calvin Klein briefs, and is a much better fit than Shia LaBeouf in the previous films. While Shia had his personal traits (cockiness, arrogance and mischief as seen in his recent misadventures), Mark portrays Cade perfectly as a dorky-looking inventor and overprotective father hoping to invent the next big thing to pay for rent and college fees for his daughter, Tessa Yeager (Nicola Peltz).
With its long run time of 165 mins (a resemblance to the film’s budget of $165 million) and a revamped cast, one would assume that this version has a really good plot in store for its audience, or at least some really good character development.
Unfortunately, the only person with any real character arc is Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), the head scientist and owner of Kinetic Sciences Institute (KSI) who is well-dressed and speaks in veritable quotes against a backdrop of sleek backgrounds and images of floating jellyfish, perhaps modelled after the late and eminent Steve Jobs.
At KSI, Joshua manages to isolate the metal that the transformer robots are made of, aptly coined ‘Transformium’. It also comes with the nifty ability of mutating into anything that he programs it to. Along with Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer), a shady ex-CIA bureaucrat, the duo make up the film’s 2 human antagonists.
But who cares about character development in a Michael Bay film? Here, we see sleek and sporty automobile goodness and signature explosions and fight scenes, dubbed by some as ‘Bayhem’. Fans who have watched the previous film Dark of the Moon will recognize the first few fight scenes is set in Chicago.
Fan boys and speed demons will be thrilled to see an amazing new fleet of sports cars from the Bugatti Veyron Grand Sport Vitesse, Lamborghini Aventador LP, C7 Corvette Stingray, to the Pagani Huayra. Some were even custom-made for the movie.
Transformers: Age of Extinction still retains the essence of the previous 3 Transformers movies, which is really a showroom for Transformers toys by Hasbro. Let’s face it, the franchise has never really been about the plot, and it probably never will be. All that really matters are more robots, more cars, and more deafening explosions.
In other words, watch the movie if you’re only interested in the superficial (fancy robots, fancier cars, and visual effects). Anything else you’ll be sorely disappointed. Did someone say this is the first of a reboot trilogy? The nightmare is just beginning.
Rating: 2.5/5
Release Date: 26 June 2014
Runtime: 165 minutes
Language: English
Censorship Rating: PG13
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action
Director: Michael Bay
Main Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Jack Reynor, Kelsey Grammer
Photos Courtesy of United International Pictures Singapore