Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (or simply Transformers 4) is a 2014 3D science fiction action film based on the Transformers franchise. It is the fourth installment of the live-action Transformers film series. It is a sequel to 2011's Dark of the Moon, taking place five years after the battle of Chicago. Like its predecessors, it was directed by Michael Bay and written by Ehren Kruger, with Steven Spielberg and Bay as executive producers. It stars Mark Wahlberg in the lead role, with Peter Cullen reprising his role as the voice of Optimus Prime. It is the first film in the series to not feature the original human characters from the first three films, but features a whole new cast of human characters and twenty-two new Transformers, including the Dinobots for the first time in the series. Returning Transformers includes Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ratchet, Leadfoot, Brains, and Megatron (now known as Galvatron). The film was released on June 27, 2014, in IMAX and 3D.

Critical reception of the film was negative. It received an average rating of 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. It also received seven nominations at the 35th Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture and Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel, with Bay and Kelsey Grammer winning the awards for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor respectively. However, many praised the visual effects, the action sequences, Steve Jablonsky's musical score, and the performances of Wahlberg, Grammer and Stanley Tucci. Despite the negative reviews, the film was a massive box office success, grossing over $1.104 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2014, the second highest-grossing film in the Transformers series, the nineteenth film to gross over $1 billion, and the thirteenth highest-grossing film of all time.

A fifth installment, Transformers 5, is set to be released in 2017 with Cullen set to return and is set to be animated and will show the Transformers origins.

Storyline

After the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons that leveled Chicago, humanity thinks that all alien robots are a threat. So Harold Attinger, a CIA agent, establishes a unit whose sole purpose is to hunt down all of them. But it turns out that they are aided by another alien robot who is searching for Optimus Prime. Cade Yeager, a "robotics expert", buys an old truck and upon examining it, he thinks it's a Transformer. When he powers it up, he discovers it's Optimus Prime. Later, men from the unit show up looking for Optimus. He helps Yeager and his daughter Tessa escape but are pursued by the hunter. They escape and Yeager learns from technology he took from the men that a technology magnate and defense contractor named Joshua Joyce is part of what's going on, so they go to find out what's going on.

Plot

Sixty-five million years ago, the alien race known as the "Creators" invade Earth, wiping out most of life on the planet including the dinosaurs with the "Seeds", and cyber-form thousands of planets, including Cybertron. In the present, Darcy Tirrel discovered frozen dinosaur corpses in the Arctic.

Five years after the Battle of Chicago, humanity has grown fearful of the Transformers, resulting in the termination of joint operations with the Autobots. Cemetery Wind, an elite CIA black ops unit formed by opportunistic agent and paranoid government official Harold Attinger and ruthless team leader James Savoy, is tasked with hunting the remaining Decepticons. However, they have also been secretly hunting Autobots, believing all Transformers to be a threat, despite the Autobots officially being granted sanctuary by the government. With the help from the Cybertronian bounty hunter Lockdown, they hunt down, ambush and kill most of the Autobots, including Ratchet and Leadfoot. However, Optimus Prime is the only Autobot to escape and go into hiding after an ambush in Mexico City, and the primary target whom Lockdown wants captured alive.

In rural Texas, Cade Yeager is an inventor struggling financially, with college funding for his daughter, Tessa, and the loss of his property looming. One day, he and his friend Lucas Flannery discover an old truck in an abandoned theater and they buy it to repair and sell. Cade discovers that the truck is an injured Optimus Prime and repairs him, bringing him back to life. Because Lucas notifies them, Cemetery Wind and Lockdown confront and threaten the Yeagers and Lucas before Optimus attacks and rescues them before Lockdown fires a barrage of missiles and destroys the Yeager's home. Cade, Tessa and Lucas escape with Tessa's secret boyfriend, Shane Dyson. Safety is found after a long chase, until Lockdown uses one of the grenades which kills Lucas, forcing the Yeager's and Shane to escape with Optimus alone. Tensions rise between Cade and the two lovers over their secret relationship while Optimus rallies remaining Autobots Bumblebee, Hound, Drift, and Crosshairs in the desert. Cade hacks into a spy drone he took from the Texas attack, learning of Kinetic Solutions Incorporated (KSI), a technology firm in league with Cemetery Wind, and they decide to infiltrate KSI HQ in Chicago. Before departing however, a fuming Optimus declares he will personally kill Attinger for plotting against the Transformers.

Meanwhile, Joshua Joyce, the arrogant head of KSI, shows Transformium (the scarce metal of which Transformers are made) to Darcy. He has imprisoned Brains to decode dead and fallen Transformers' minds like Megatron, Sentinel, Leadfoot and Ratchet for raw materials and utilize their data for human-created Transformers "upgrades". Joshua shows Darcy his prized creation Galvatron, created using data from Megatron's severed head. Despite designing Galvatron to look like Optimus Prime it instead resembles Megatron. The Autobots storm the facility, but Joshua stops them, proclaiming the Autobots are no longer needed now that they can create their own Transformers. Disillusioned, the Autobots decide to leave.

Forced by Attinger, Joshua launches Galvatron and Stinger (a man-made Transformer similar to Bumblebee) to pursue the Autobots. Optimus engages Galvatron in a brawl which is cut short when Lockdown interrupts the fight, wounding Optimus before capturing him and Tessa on his ship while Galvatron and Stinger draw back. He explains that those who made the Transformers, the "Creators," want Optimus back. Before leaving, Lockdown gives Cemetery Wind a powerful relic called the Seed, which when detonated transforms living things into transformium and cyberforms wide areas of land, giving the Autobots time to board the ship. Cade and Shane save Tessa and escape with Bumblebee and Crosshairs while Hound and Drift escape with Optimus on a detachable part of Lockdown's ship. Optimus and Brains reveal that Galvatron is the reincarnated Megatron who has manipulated KSI to steal the Seed and rebuild the Decepticons. An enraged Joshua demands to know why he did not have any control over Galvatron, finally deciding to move to his factory in Guangzhou, China. Cade warns Joshua, who retreated to Beijing to use production facilities with Su Yueming, about Galvatron and Attinger. Having a change of heart and knowing that Cade is correct, Joshua confronts Attinger over his actions and backs off their deal. But as the two come to an argument, Galvatron activates himself and infects all the KSI prototypes. Joshua flees with the Seed to Hong Kong, with a betrayed Attinger and Galvatron chasing him.

When the Autobots try to retrieve the Seed at Hong Kong, their ship is shot down by the new Decepticons, leaving the Yeagers, Shane, Hound and Bumblebee to fight. Along the way, Cade kills Savoy in a fist fight in an apartment before Attinger contacts Lockdown for the Autobots' current location, where the Decepticons outnumber and outmatch the Autobots. Knowing this, Optimus releases and tames the legendary warriors known as the Dinobots, with Optimus riding Grimlock after defeating him in a fight while pleading for his assistance. With their help, the Autobots defeat the Decepticons while Bumblebee manages to kill Stinger while riding Strafe. Unfortunately, Lockdown, angry that Optimus hijacked part of his ship, returns with a magnetic weapon to reclaim Optimus and the Dinobots. After Optimus destroys the magnetic weapon, he fights Lockdown on an island off Hong Kong. Cade arrives during their fight and attempts to help Optimus, but is attacked and held at gunpoint by Attinger, who proudly justifies his actions before snarling at Cade for siding with the Transformers over humanity (still considering them a threat). Witnessing this, Optimus saves Cade by shooting Attinger, killing him as he promised earlier on. However, the distraction allows Lockdown to overpower Optimus before impaling him with his sword to a wall. Having arrived to help, Bumblebee helps Cade fight Lockdown, only for the villainous bounty hunter to defeat Bumblebee and attack Cade. This is when Tessa and Shane use a tow truck to pull the sword out of Optimus, who surprises and kills Lockdown before he can finish off Cade, avenging the deaths of Lucas and his fellow Autobots Ratchet and Leadfoot in the process.

Everyone escapes after Optimus uses Lockdown's last grenade to destroy the remaining Decepticons while Galvatron, the sole surviving Decepticon, retreats to an unknown location with Lockdown's ship, vowing that he will return for he is reborn. The Dinobots are then set free and they depart to find their own path as Joyce plans to make amends with Cade (who finally accepts Shane as his daughter's boyfriend) by arranging for him and Tessa to gain a new house. Optimus then flies into space with the Seed, sending a message to the Creators that he is coming for them, but after ordering the surviving Autobots to protect the Yeagers.

User Review

This contains lots of spoiler, so beware if you hate being spoiled about a movie you haven't watched yet.

To be completely honest, I enjoyed every single bit of the movie and it's on my top favourite list of this year after the movie Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Perhaps, it is because I am a fan of transformers movies since part one. And definitely, it's because people's opinions and points view do differ after all. So, it's absolutely something normal to see bad reviews and good ones. But for this movie's situation, I neither can understand nor fully digest at how most of the reviewers are going mad about it.

Firstly, there's absolutely a plot going on in this movie. And this is Michale Bay's style in his creation of Transformers. So I don't get how most of people would say something like (there wasn't even a story to being with..). Well, I believe that the reason could possibly occur due to the fact that most people are raging about it since the original story itself had a different plot. (The original story indicating the cartoon one) But, so what? Bay had a different idea in his mind, and to be honest, it was not uninteresting and bad at all. If you're very disappointed about this fact, then why bother watch the movie from the start if you'll just keep judging it with the cartoon one?

Secondly, the action is amazing. Beautifully made. The robots look very flawless. Optimus Prime looks stunning. And Bumblebee is definitely adorable. And especially the new army that helped them at the end of the battle, this idea took my breath away and I clapped at that part. The robotic dragoon was a classic in my opinion. The drama and harmony that goes in circle between the robot family is just heart warming. And now Let's face it, Transformer is definitely a Sci/Fi and Action sort of genre, isn't it? So, OF COURSE there will be lots of it. I mean, even the cartoon one had the same genre.. So, what's the difference here? Why'd they fuss about it? And why most of reviewers are making fun of it and saying something like (all that ever happened was action.) Hm, okay? To be honest, if someone said to me now: (yeah since too much action made me blind from seeing the drama.) I might even accept it since I'll understand from that point of view that this person wasn't even interested, and was already disappointed before even buying the ticket.

Thirdly, the soundtracks were epic. Amazing choice of songs from good bands that are well known from today. What I like about Transformer is that they like to differ in their bands, they don't always stick to one band or the same bands for their music. They like to explore since they have an idea of the tendency of differences in many others that might suit the movie's behalf. They do stick to some bands that they like, but still, don't you realise they always have new bands and singers going along their OST? That's something I literally appreciate, and I believe it's one part of making a movie epic.

Lastly, the new actors and actresses that were chosen were actually pretty good in their roles. Especially Cade. I loved his role the most, and I love the fact that he found Optimus Prime, and had created a warm bond with him. Their acting was satisfactory to me, and okay, I somehow agree with the humorous part in some scenes. But it wasn't that bad at all. In fact, I thought that some of them were really funny and enjoyable. Some people have humor like this, you don't always have to expect excellence in humorousness because other people have lame jokes too, and some others would laugh about it and appreciate it. Unfortunately, not most of us see that, right? And would just therefore judge.

Anyway, in the end, I appreciated this movie not because I am a big fan of it, but because I totally think it was beautifully made. Thus, explains the 10 I've given. I strongly believe that Bay's effort was heartily given, and he made me respect his cleverness in his thing for explosions and actions once more. Therefore, it made me utterly sad to see people have hated it JUST because of such trifle matters. Again, I'm not saying this because I am a big fan of it. E.G. I used to be a big fan of The Vampire Diaries series. But not anymore, because it literally started to get boring and complicated. But the latest Transformers, wasn't complicated at ALL, and it still had the same storyline. So what is there to be complicate about. It's obvious if you TRULY observe and not go along with people who judge just in order to either "fit in" or go with the norm. And again, people's opinions do differ after all. So, who am I to also keep pointing out. Though I just wanted to explain all of this because I believe it's like an advice as well.

So, my advice to you is, if you still haven't seen the movie, and you're having doubts about it since most reviews are bad, or YOU already have BAD thought about it since some others have persuaded you; still, give give it a try. Why not, right? What's to lose anyway? If YOU are confident that you can afford the ticket, and wouldn't mind, and wouldn't hate or rage about the money if you didn't like it, then go for it and see for yourself. And once you're in the cinema and ready to watch, blackout all the thoughts and opinions that have craved in your head by others, and let out YOUR thought and attentiveness to judge the movie from your own point of view. Enjoy it!