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Tuesday 8 July 2014

Transformers Review

Transformers: Age of Extinction


I study Film and TV at Uni so, during summer, I figured I might as well keep taking the Uni's suggestions and write reviews of movies I see.

I went to see Transformers: Age of Extinction last night on a whim because there was nothing else on at the time we arrived. I had seen the first two of the franchise when they came out and I never really cared for them but I gave this a go anyway. 

The film revolves around an inventor, played by Mark Wahlberg, who stumbles upon Optimus Prime 5 years after the war in Chicago. He restores Optimus to working condition and then, basically, a lot of things happen to him, his beautiful daughter and her boyfriend because of their new found association with the Autobots. 

I enjoyed the first hour or so of the movie. However, I'm a pretty pathetically sensitive person so a few hours of constant action and suspense is just an overload for my emotions that I don't really care for. I did check my phone 1 hour and 30 minutes in thinking to myself 'Good, only another half hour left'. Waw, was I wrong. 

 The action packed aspect of the movie was constant throughout with occasional plot assistance and funny jokes. The comic relief aspects of the film were particularly endearing to me because I was rather bored of all the unnecessary violence. 

If you're happy to watch films with no substance because you just like visual effects and alien wars then go and see it. By now, I think we should all know what to expect from a Transformers movie. We shouldn't all expect to be moved by the plot or inspired by the characters. The Transformer movies offer 2-3 hours of exciting CGI work, a bit of protagonist heroism and action. That's it. Take it or leave it. 

Here's some Positive and Negative things I thought about the film because I've even gotten bored just writing about the film. Sorry!


Positives:

The only way the visual effects could have improved is if the transformers were real, came to Earth, had a little battle and Michael Bay had been there to capture it on camera.

Tessa, the character, was hot and a played by a better actress than her predecessors (In general, lots of female eye-candy with no real purpose were included).

I wasn't saddened at any point by the loss of a character I've grown attached to. (Is that a spoiler?)

There's a lot of bad ass cars to amuse audiences. 

Mark Wahlberg is actually pretty decent in this. 

I think Optimus Prime is a sweetheart.

Negatives: 

The plot lacked any real depth (but isn't that what you expect going in?)

It's about an hour and a half too long (really, it's exhausting after a while)

They randomly move from America to China... because they realise it's getting a little bit boring. So, why not just add funny cultural differences to lessen that bore factor?

They're clearly just manipulating the use of China as Hollywood's largest emerging market. 

A rather weak attempt to justify the use of dinosaur transformers (everyone knows they just wanted it to look more cool)

The ending suggested there's room for more films to be made. 


I started out writing this thinking it was a good idea, but it's so negative. I apologies for the negativity, this film just wasn't really for me. 



-Tessatata xoxo