Second Look - Transformers: Age of Extinction

Note: This review contains spoilers for Transformers: Age of Extinction.

Three years after Transformers: Dark of the Moon, a fourth live-action Transformers film, subtitled Age of Extinction, was released with the intent of kickstarting a new trilogy. When I first watched this film in the theater, and on subsequent viewings, my outlook on it was generally positive, as I had found it to be vast improvement over the first three installments to the point where I saw it as the best of the series. After Bumblebee proved to be a genuinely good movie in its own right, I decided to go back and reevaluate how I felt about this movie, viewing it through a Blu-ray release that featured the presentation of the IMAX version. While I still like it on some level, I noticed more of its flaws this time around.

Millions of years ago, a mysterious alien force arrives to Earth in the dinosaur era and partially terraforms it, to be rediscovered in the present day. Following the events of Dark of the Moon, a nationwide manhunt of both Autobots and Decepticons is orchestrated by a government group known as Cemetery Wind, led by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) with aid from the bounty hunter Lockdown (Mark Ryan). Meanwhile, in Texas, an inventor named Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) goes to a rundown movie theater to purchase leftover junk, only to stumble on a battle-damaged flatnose truck. $150 and some tinkering later, Cade realizes that the truck he found is actually Optimus Prime.

Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) wants to rid the world of Transformers.

Though a little bloated, the story is mostly written well and presents some interesting ideas that make it stand out from the first three Transformers films. Cade Yaeger is an interesting character, thanks in part to Mark Wahlberg’s acting ability, with the strained relationship with his daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz) adding some depth to his character. His mechanical background also allows him to be a more active ally to the Autobots, as circumstances made it so he had to win over Optimus Prime’s trust when they first met rather than the other way around. In general, the human cast is an improvement over the original trilogy, with largely stronger personalities that make them tolerable at least and memorable at best for the right reasons.

Among the more memorable characters is Harold Attinger, played by Kelsey Grammer of Frasier and The Simpsons fame. His previous acclaim aside, he convincingly portrays a villainous character with a presence in whatever room he’s in, helped by his character being played more seriously. Lockdown also has a presence in the story, with Mark Ryan’s voice acting and his ability to summon a cannon in front of his face making him memorable in a different way than his original Transformers Animated counterpart. On that note, the story borrows some elements from other Transformers series in an interesting way, such as the element of the first Season of Transformers Animated where Megatron is reduced to a head and used to reverse-engineer knowledge on the Transformers. In addition, Drift, voiced by Ken Watanabe, originates from the IDW G1 comics and his Japanese stylings are repurposed for a samurai direction in both appearance and personality.

Another interesting idea presented in the story is that a group known as KSI has been reverse-engineering Transformers to the point of attempting to create their own using the very element they are made out of, which they refer to as the admittedly silly-sounding Transformium. This plays into one of the strengths of the movie, that being the well-paced and executed revival of Megatron as Galvatron, voiced by Frank Welker in a return to his voice heard in the original 1980s cartoon. While the movie has an overall serious tone, there are some genuinely funny moments in the movie that are not reliant on the preceding trilogy’s raunchy humor, with some of the funnier ones coming from Drift and KSI head Joshua Joyce, played by Stanley Tucci.

While some ideas are executed well, others are not. One major factor that was hyped up in marketing and early on in the movie is the live-action debut of the Dinobots, however they don’t formally appear until the ending battle in China that makes up the last hour of the film and even then, they don’t seem to do much of anything. On the subject of length, the nearly three-hour runtime wasn’t entirely warranted, since some scenes designed to set up a second trilogy only serve to pad out the length and removing said scenes could easily help streamline the story with some rewrites. The Autobots, including Optimus Prime and especially Hound (John Goodman), are generally depicted as being more bloodthirsty here compared to other films, with Drift being the exception for the most part. Like the other three films, there is some product placement, though a few of the more distracting examples include a prominent Lamborghini logo on Lockdown’s chest; a Beats Pill speaker and a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Rainbow Dash plush, both made of Transformium; and a KSI-produced Transformer that turns into an Oreo vending machine.

The Dinobots (Grimlock pictured) don't do much.

On a minor note, it seems easy to tell that the script writing was done in California, since the movie bends over backwards to justify Tessa Yeager, who is stated to be 17 years old, being in a relationship with the older Shane Dyson (Jack Reynor), even going so far as to invent a “Romeo and Juliet Law” despite the fact that it would have been far easier to explain that the age of consent in the state of Texas, where the first half of the story takes place, is 17 as of the film’s writing.

In contrast to the first three films, some changes were made to try and make the film’s action scenes easier to follow for general audiences. For starters, while staying in lone with the established art direction for the live-action continuity, the designs of the Transformers have been streamlined to feature less mechanical detail and appear somewhat more “organic”, though some of the mechanical detail is still present in close-up shots. Additionally, there are far fewer named characters to keep track of during the final battle, which previously came to a head in Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon, plus most of the robots are given brighter color schemes to stand apart from each other more easily in crowd shots. While the IMAX presentation heightens the visual clarity and scope of the film itself, this doesn’t save some dodgier Transformium effects, namely when the substance is used to create small objects such as a gun or the aforementioned Rainbow Dash plush and their lack of physical presence is made obvious.

While the overall quality is debatable, it cannot be denied that the film did have some impact on the Transformers brand at large. As with the other films, Age of Extinction has seen its fair share of representation in the ongoing Studio Series toyline, among them a Leader Class figure of Grimlock that has been cited as the only good toy based on this version of the character on account of the toyline’s goal of screen accuracy. On another level, this film’s depiction of Drift as a samurai was used as the basis for his counterpart in the 2015 Robots in Disguise cartoon, with his role as a recurring character allowing this characterization to be further explored and expanded.

Interestingly, Galvatron's vehicle mode in this film...

...was later recycled for Dr. Robotnik's truck in the Sonic the Hedgehog film.

Transformers: Age of Extinction is definitely not the best Transformers film, with some flaws holding back the full potential of its storytelling, however it is overall one of the better pre-Bumblebee installments due to its better-handled human cast and its exploration of some interesting ideas. Though it generally improves somewhat over the preceding entries, the runtime can easily scare some people off, however it is worth watching once for fans of the franchise.