Transformers 4: Age of Extinction (2014)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Michael Bay (Armageddon)
	Actors: Mark Wahlberg (Pain and Gain), Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor
	Country: USA
	Genre: SF, Action
	Conditions of visioning: 16.07.2014, CINEMA theater, 3D
Synopsis: Cade Yeager (Wahlberg), a mechanic, finds an old truck that turns out to be Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots. Although friends of humans, those are being hunted down by a special section of the CIA and an alien bounty hunter.
Review: After three Transformers movies, we were promised a brand new cast and a new turn in the story. I had some good hopes at the beginning, as the movie starts in a theater and an old man complains that recent movies are only remakes and sequels, a way for Michael Bay to maybe announce that he will deliver a real movie this time, not a secession of good-looking images and unreadable fights. Next, we learn what happened after the Chicago battle of the third movie, how much it did cost in terms of lives and money. This is something I have always criticized in the Transformers movies (and other recent blockbusters): you see cities being destroyed but you never see one person dying, or the nation having to rebuild after the events. And then we spend some time with the Yaeger family, introduced with feelings and less stupid humour as the Witwicky was in the previous movies. But then after half an hour all my hopes vanished: useless comic characters are back trying to fill the gap left by the genius John Turturro (even when one dies, he is replaces by another one that looks the same), the story is filled with gaps and there are huge problems of continuity in the editing. The motivations of the characters are fuzzy at best and the movie contains about an hour of useless exposition shots, so that I am convinced the movie could have been made to last 1h45 instead of the absurd 2h45. Note that I didn't get bored, but I spent 1 hour watching useless scenes. Typically from Michael Bay the camera angles keep on getting lower and lower, and there are five sunsets per day with helicopters flying in slow motion in front of them, while the next scene is in broad daylight. On the positive side, there are a few good ideas like the new kind of robots (created by humans), the improved look of Optimus Prime and of course the presence of Dinobots which you have to wait for two hours but then they do kick ass. The 3D is subtle and well done. The best in this movie remains the quality of the special effects, obviously created by very talented computer artists. I found one scene in which Bumble Bee is caught in slow motion by a giant flying reptile-robot emerging from a cloud of dust quite breathtaking. I remember noticing in the very last images of the robot in Transformers 3 a clearly higher quality, and in Transformers 4 half of the robots apparitions look that good. I like particularly the looks of the samurai Autobot ('Drift') that turns into a chopper, and of the one with something that looks like a long green coat ('Crosshairs'). See below pictures of those two guys and an iconic poster for the movie, at least if you like robots and dinosaurs. I rate the movie pretty low, maybe lower than the previous ones, not because it is that bad but because of the unfulfilled promises.
Rating: 3 /10