The biggest most expensive edition in the series, but is Age of Extinction signalling its own demise?
The opening scenes for Transformers: Age of Extinction seemed so promising, that I immediately thought that the production was going to head in a new direction and give us this amazing new insight into the history of the Transformers. Anytime a series wants to go beyond a second and third instalment successfully, I think that it is important to create a deeper mythology of the characters, relationships and origins and I thought this is where we were heading...well I was wrong, O so wrong...
What we have in this fourth instalment is the biggest, loudest, cleanest looking episode out of the series. But what comes along with a film that focuses its full attention on all things technical and action, is the the loss of an intriguing plot and some solid lines. If you want to make these robots credible, to make us believe that they have souls and feelings, to make us root for them, then you can't have them say stupid, crass or what one might call heroic lines that ring empty or of machismo.
"Without much effort you'll be able to pick out which character in the new movie, is replacing which character from the previous - yes it's a different movie, with a different focus but really not that much has changed."
With the first 2 Transformers films it was already getting hard to remember which one was which and by the time you'd watched the third one they seemed to have all melded into one film. With AOE there are noticeable differences because of the new cast and the way the new robots transform. And you would think, that this would be a plus, but the main casting simply reflects a direct replacement of the characters that existed before. Without much effort you'll be able to pick out which character in the new movie, is replacing which character from the previous - yes it's a different movie, with a different focus but really not that much has changed.
Overall this film is an assault on the senses, but not on the feelings, personally I was unmoved by most of the 165 minute film and there were only two occasions where my emotions were engaged. For the most part I sat in the cinema watching a spectacle that just didn't have enough heart, so as it stands in seeing all four films, the most subtle episode out of them all, remains the best one and that would be the first film.
Rating 4.5/10
The opening scenes for Transformers: Age of Extinction seemed so promising, that I immediately thought that the production was going to head in a new direction and give us this amazing new insight into the history of the Transformers. Anytime a series wants to go beyond a second and third instalment successfully, I think that it is important to create a deeper mythology of the characters, relationships and origins and I thought this is where we were heading...well I was wrong, O so wrong...
What we have in this fourth instalment is the biggest, loudest, cleanest looking episode out of the series. But what comes along with a film that focuses its full attention on all things technical and action, is the the loss of an intriguing plot and some solid lines. If you want to make these robots credible, to make us believe that they have souls and feelings, to make us root for them, then you can't have them say stupid, crass or what one might call heroic lines that ring empty or of machismo.
"Without much effort you'll be able to pick out which character in the new movie, is replacing which character from the previous - yes it's a different movie, with a different focus but really not that much has changed."
With the first 2 Transformers films it was already getting hard to remember which one was which and by the time you'd watched the third one they seemed to have all melded into one film. With AOE there are noticeable differences because of the new cast and the way the new robots transform. And you would think, that this would be a plus, but the main casting simply reflects a direct replacement of the characters that existed before. Without much effort you'll be able to pick out which character in the new movie, is replacing which character from the previous - yes it's a different movie, with a different focus but really not that much has changed.
Overall this film is an assault on the senses, but not on the feelings, personally I was unmoved by most of the 165 minute film and there were only two occasions where my emotions were engaged. For the most part I sat in the cinema watching a spectacle that just didn't have enough heart, so as it stands in seeing all four films, the most subtle episode out of them all, remains the best one and that would be the first film.
Rating 4.5/10
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