vrijdag 17 oktober 2014

Transformers 4 Age of Extinction review

Let me start with a confession.  I refused to go watch this movie in the cinemas.  I grew up with Transformers, I like the Autobots, dinobots are awesome... but I hate what Michael `boom Boom BOOM` Bay does with these movies.

Like any other geek, I like the better sci-fi action works.  Big explosions, epic battles... that`s entertainment folks.  The kind of movie you can sit back with and just have it wash over you.  But the Transformers movies are `over it` on that part.  To many explosions, chaotic transformations, fights without oversight... I`m not fond of them.

Synopsis:

The movie opens with odd snail like vessels going over prehistoric Earth and attack the local area which turns out to be the Antartic.  It`s attacks with a sort of liquid metal kill of many of the dinosaurs, but in our time, scientists actually uncover these remnants.
When looking around in an old theatre, two blokes in the meantime discover an old and rusted truck.  Yeager is a tech builder and inventor strapped for cash, and makes a living repairing items from the neighbours. 
It has been 5 years now since the battle of Chicago, and we learn that Ironhide is indeed deceased, and that the Autobots went into hiding as relations with mankind have detoriated.  This is shown when a new CIA unit, Cemetary Wind, tracers Ratchet.  They are founded to hunt remaining Decepticons, but together with the mercenary transformer Lockdown kill off Ratchet who doesn`t want to tell them where Optimus Prime is hiding

Way to go Bay, killing off each and every `generation 1` Autobot, classic examples of a whole generation.  Idiot.

Yeager manages to reactivate the heavily damaged Optimus, by removing a stuck missile from his power core.  The CIA however has a lead on him and scrambles to the house.  When agent Savoy threatens to kill CY`s daughter Tess, Optimus is forced to reveal himself to save the humans.  He gets attacked by Lockdown while Tess`s boyfriend Shane comes to the rescue in his rallycar.  Lockdown manages to kill CY`s partner Lucas, but the others escape in Optimus.
They go out ans search for other Autobots, and as he comes `out of hiding` sheds his cover of his actual G1 look to change into a Peterbuild truck again in it`s heavy blue / red livery and proudly displaying the Autobot icon.  He finds Hound, Drift, Crosshairs and Bumblebee, but the Autobots are so on edge they resort to frequent infighting.

We learn that a government contractor, KSI, has the wrecks of the transformers, and strips them down to create a mutable metal they call `Transformium`.  They keep trying to build the first man-made transformer Galvatron (yeah, as if THAT was his origin story, sigh) but it keeps taking on the appearance of Megatron.  When Optimus and the Autobots break in the lab, they activate Galvatron and Spinner (the new and improved `Bee copy), both remote controlled... but a glitch seemingly causes them to act on a low independant level.  Galvatron and Prime face off, but when Lockdown appears on the scene the Autobot leader is bested and taken to Lockdown`s ship together with Tess.

The other Autobots together with the humans manage to board the ship and free their comrades right before the ship warps away, and they learn the truth that Galvatron is actually Megatron, who has had his conscience transferred to the new body, unbeknowst to the human scientist.  Megatron wants to obtain something called the `Seed` and with that hopes to erase a city and build a new army from the resulting material fall out.  Optimus remains downtrodden in his views of humanity though, angry at the friends he lost trying to protect humans.  Bumblebee and Hound try to hold off a flood of the new Decepticons, the activated prototypes stored at KSI, while Optimus and the others crash the escape ship and realise they need reinforcements... whom might just be captured in the ship.


Enter... the DINOBOTS!!!  Every ounce as big and menacing as they have been known, these make short work of the Decepticons.  Lockdown returns with his mothership to reclaim his price, Optimus Prime, and they clash once again, but thanks to Cade and Bumblebee they overcome the mercenary... and Optimus finishes him off once and for all.

Galvatron remains at large... but as the other Autobots stay behind to protect CY and his family, Optimus blasts off to go and look for the Creators.

Conclusion:

It`s a bad movie.  It`s perhaps more over the top then the previous ones, and that is saying something.  Okay, the Dinobots where pretty awesome and the animations CGI is top notch, but still.
Kelsey Grammar is great in the movie, but then again I always though of him as a fantastic actor, but the finishing off of nearly every original Autobot now is rather silly.
Also, at 2 hours and a half, the movie `drags` around the middle point, and if you thought the original tarnsforming sequences where bad... wait until you see the `brick worms` they use now for the man-made Decepticons...

And I keep missing Megan :-(


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