Big Pile of Dog Poo. Review on Transformers: Age of Extinction

WARNING: This review is an extended rant

Sometimes, you just wonder if there is something fundamentally wrong in the way people think and behave. About what they like. This applies to Johnny Lever's toilet humour, the popularity of Arnab Goswami and yes, the reining popularity of the Transformers movies.

When the first transformers movie released in 2007, it was an enjoyable one time watch. Yes, it did not have anything much resembling a plot, but hey, it had talking robots, transforming into sexy cars. it had guns, explosions, action, and Megan Fox. It appealed to both the 9-year old and the teenager in us.

But then, Michael Bay decided that he was onto a good thing, and milk the franchise for all it's worth. That resulted in 3 more movies, all of which were progressively worse. The present movie, Age of Extinction, is pretty much more of the same. It's a big pile of dog poo, monkey poo. It stinks.

In fact, such is the similarity of the Transformers Movies that I can reuse the same review for the earlier movies, if I had written one, that is.

Basic facts: There are good robots(Autobots), who are being hunted by the world's government, which has been infiltrated by the evil robots(Decepticons). The evil robots want to take over the world, make the humans their slaves and convert all devices into transformers(robots like them). In between, there are some humans who get caught in the crossfire and help the Autobots. And there is the obligatory hot girl in skimpy clothes(Nicola Peltz in this case). There are LOUD NOISES, huge explosions and a whole lot of destruction for no reason.

So here are my complaints with this movie(which also apply to all the previous ones)

The robots have no personality / all look alike

For a movie so focuesed on the transformers, you would expcet that the robots would at least expect the robits on the oppsing camps to sound and look different. But no. Apart from Optimus Prime(the main hero bot), none of the others look or feel different. They are completely interchangable, and during the fights, you have no idea who is fighting wheom.

The humans are irritating

At least Mark Whalberg tried to convey a sense of purpose in this movie, and is a million times less irritaing than Shia Le Bouf, who lead the first three movies. Still, you wonder what is the point of having humans at all. All they do is provide a backdrop to the destruction, and when they do come up on screen, sprout the most clihed and boring dialovues you can think of.

LOUD NOISES - Repeat x 100

There are movies with amazing soundtracks. And on the other end of the spectrum, there is transformers. Michael Bay seems to want to deafen you in each movie. THe explosions, cruching metal and sound of chaos is further amplified by a huge single track background score which they seem to have stolen from Inception and amplified till the sound distorted. Serioisl, y t gives me a headache just thinking about it.

Plot. What Plot?

As noted above, each movie follows one basic plot. Good Robots meet humans. Evil robots meet humans. Fighting. Destruction. Good guys win in the end. It has been recycled so many times you do not feel iterested, as you KNOW no harm will come to the protagonists, and the antangnist will eventually be destroyed(again).

The Dinobots make no sense(spoiler alert)

One selling point of this transformers movie was the feature of Dinobots.As you can tell, they are basially transorming robots who are like dinosaurs. What? That makes no sense. Since the newer transofoerms take the shape of cars or machines that exists, does that mean the earlier transofmers on eartch took the shape of organic tissue. Then why don't they all do that. It makes no sense. They do look cool though, for the few minutes they are on screen.

Verdict

If you are like 5-9 years old, you will probably like it this latest installent of Transformers, as it provides the same mix of guns, boom, and kapow you expect. If you are the parents of the 5 to 9 years old who are attenign the movie with them, you have my sympathies.