Transformers 4: Age of Extinction is a period piece set during the Victorian era of the British Empire. Wait, no. It's a movie about a couple who meets years later after a failed college romance. No, no, that's not right either but honestly, either of those ideas would have made for a more interesting film that this. Age of Extinction picks up after the aftermath of the previous trilogy, leaving the world in a post Alien-mech attack that destroyed much of Chicago. (Spoilers, lots of them ahead) After the the damage left by both the Autobots and Deceptacons, the government has decided that the best option would be to eliminate every transformer they can find to prevent another war breaking out and claiming innocent lives. The problem, aside from the plot, is nearly everything else. You get exactly what you expect from Michael Bay, a few tired stereotypical jokes, blatant in-your-face product placement that's so odd at times it's actually hilarious, jokes that fall flat, and more explosions than you could even handle. By the end of this film, I was actually so exhausted from all of the explosions, I didn't think that there could be a film that had "too much" action. Aside from this, one of the strengths is new lead Mark Whalberg, who starts off the film with Silicon Vally funny man T.J. Miller as the comic relief who sadly does not make it through. The supporting cast of Nicola Peltz, Jack Raynor, Stanley Tucci and Kelsey Grammer, among others, certainly rounds out the film but the best scenes are centered around Whalbergs father-daughter relationship with Peltz, which has them butting heads throughout the film and even finding a middle ground with Optimus Primes relationship with Bumblebee. While a lot of people argue that this movie is better without Shia Lebouf, due most likely to his actions as of late, I'd argue that the interactions with his embarrassing and sometimes clueless parents actually added to the original trilogy and gave Sam Witwitcky A lot of nonsensical things happened as well, like a scene where Mark Whalberg is able to pick up a faceplate of Optimus Prime with no effort as well as remove one of the enemy weapons and carry it throughout the film. They even haul a small missile by just dragging it around and it was apparently light enough to have on Tucci's back while he was on back of a motorcycle in one scene. Theres a scene showing a, what should have been, 17 year younger version of Mark Whalberg holding his newborn daughter but instead looks nearly identical to the one you're looking at present day. Optimus Prime even flies. They're a handful of other small issues like a scene during negotions to get a motorcycle that seems to move from night to day without any explanation or a scene that has Peltz crawing on long anchor wires being chased by mechanical dog-bots that pull a disappearing act between camera cuts. While the movie did introduce new villains and brought back Megatron as the reincarnated Galvatron, created by Tucci's company in order to create their own Transformers. the ending leaves us with a few questions as Optimus Prime pledges to no longer defend earth and human beings for their actions and launches himself into outerspace to pursue his creators and the new version of Megatron. So, one can speculate, will the next Transformer film take place on earth at all? Will Whalberg and cast reprise their roles or will it feature Optimus Prime on Cybertron or maybe the film will be centered around Bumblebee and the remaining earth dwelling Autobots as they search for the last handful of Deceptacons? While Transformers 5 has already been confirmed, we'll just have to wait and see but Bay and team have quite a few options to explore with the next film scheduled for 2016. I still have no doubt that this movie is going to be one of 2014's biggest blockbuster films.
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