An explosion is an incredible thing; an expanding ball of superheated
gas that can turn metal to molten slag, incinerate human flesh, and reduce
entire buildings to heaps of unrecognisable rubble…and Michael Bay has found a
way to make them boring. I bring this up as my main problem with Transformers: Age of Extinction because
not doing so would mean facing the many, many others seeping from the films’
every orifice like bubonic pus.
The plot of the film (as much as there is one) is this: five
years since the events of Transformers:
Dark of the Moon, aliens both good and evil have been outlawed from Earth,
and an elite task force of government agents aided by a mysterious figure known
as Lockdown are tasked with finding and killing those that remain. Aspiring
inventor Cade Yeager (a name that will go down with ‘Cypher Raige’ from After Earth as one of the most
ridiculous names in film) discovers a beaten up old truck that he intends to
scrap for parts is in fact Optimus Prime, leader of the heroic Autobots. With the
government determined to hunt them, and a new alien threat emerging, Cade and
Optimus join forces.
The main issue that makes Age of Extinction such an unbearable mess is the million different
subplots clambering over each other, desperate for screen time. These range
from a conspiracy by humans to create Transformers of their own from the
element known as ‘Transformium’ (original, right?) to a prison ship full of
bizarre aliens to Cade (Mark Wahlberg) arguing over the statuary rape laws of
Texas with his daughter (Nicola Peltz) and her boyfriend (Jack Reynor). The
film is 166 minutes long, and rather than using that time to make an effort to
develop a proper story, throws in as much as possible in the hopes of
entertaining even those at the back whose brains switched off many minutes ago.
All the usual Bay-isms are there, but turned up to eleven:
Cade makes a comment about his daughters shorts being too short, that men might
leer at her, and the camera literally cuts to about an inch away from her
bottom. One of the worst female characters (if one can even use the word ‘character’
to describe her) in recent memory, she is constantly in need of saving,
screaming and crying, and at one point – very uncomfortably – has a probing
alien tongue wrap itself around her inner thigh. The rampant product placement
has reached interstellar levels of ridiculousness, to the point that the only
part of a bus that survives an explosion is the Victoria’s Secret advert
wrapped around it, and massive firefights between robots and humans are set
against the backdrop of Georgio Armani and Budweiser billboards.
An alien robot sporting the voice of Ken Watanabe refers to
everyone as ‘Sensei’, is armoured like a Samurai and spouts almost as much
pseudo-philosophical nonsense as Optimus Prime, who swings back and forth
between contemplating the ‘soul’ of a Transformer before yelling “I’ll kill you
all!” at approaching enemies. Oh, and once the ‘action’ moves to China, even
random innocent bystanders know Kung-Fu. Why is ‘action’ in inverted commas, I
hear you ask? Because by that point in the film, explosions have as much effect
on the brain as a light breeze, you can barely tell which robot’s hitting
which, and the ones you do recognise you just want to get blown up because they
keep spilling out dialogue that could be improved by a five year-old playing
with his toys…which is what Transformers should
be about.
All charm has been sucked from the franchise, and the one
small glimmer of hope amongst the cinematic carnage being vomited from the
screen – the giant robot dinosaurs – have passed through the Michael Bay
machine and had their personalities removed. Even composer Steve Jablonsky (who
I wish would just take his considerable skill somewhere better), whose epic
score underlies the whole film, gets his part ruined by a cringe-inducing vocal
pop/rock track that fades in and out of the sound mix whenever it pleases.
There is one sequence towards the beginning of the film that
really sums it up: Cade is searching for spare parts in an abandoned cinema,
and the owner is complaining about how all the movies nowadays are sequels and
remakes. In the hands of anyone else, this would be humorous in a self-mocking,
satirical kind of way, but in the hands of Michael Bay, it is a hollow, vacuous
display of just how far down the pan things have gotten.
Half-star.
