Fantastic!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

I am a huge fan of the Transformers, been that since I was a kid back in the 80s, I loved the movies too, but this movie ruined just about everything I hoped and liked about them. Too much on all and any level. Too many explosions, too much of a mess, too much talking, too much dialogue gone wrong, too much product placement, too many unlikeable heros. Mark Wahlberg is mediocre, to say the least, you couldn´t care less about his daughter, Tessa,and Shane. Repulsively conservative world view, too martial, Bumblebee either behaving like a teenager or an oversized bodyguard of humans he has never met before, being handled by random humans like a slave, no bonding, no character evolving, no connection, no chemistry, utter ruin. Plot holes everywhere. Shane fastening his seat belt in the middle of devastation, which takes place in China for no reason whatsoever, just to please the crowds. The legend called Optimus Prime, looking like a robot on steroids delivering the one cheesy line after another, ending the kill of Lockdown with the words "honor to the end" and then "defend this family, defend...what they can be" without providing a single reason and any answer on the reasonable question: Why?! Ratchet has practically been slaughtered, he himself, Optimus, was more than once almost taken out by these same humans and "what they can be", he has stated that he is done with humans and Earth but now all of a sudden, having killed Lockdown, the sky is blue again and his creators would be well advised to "leave Earth alone, for he is coming for them". Optimus, the leader of leaders, is bipolar or something? Why should anyone care about the Yeagers or any human whatsoever? Then the Dinobots degraded to pets chewing on highly advanced robots, which by the way can disassemble and reassemble themselves anytime on a molecular / particles-whirling-in-the-air level, but are exactly that easily stabbed, beheaded, shot at, dismembered and chewed upon by just about anything. Then the product placement which has here gone to extremes. Then random new Autobots out of nowhere, no justification, no plot involvement, just guns and random explosions all over the place. Then Galvatron or Megatron reincarnated complaining around with a high pitched voice calling to "his brothers" that they find him "that Seed" and having no share in the story whatsoever other than a few explosions and a lot of ruin "his brothers looking for the Seeeeeeed" cause. Then Galvatron disappearing just as easily with the words "we will meet again, Prime". Seriously? That is the all-powerful Megatron reincarnated? What are you? 12 years old? It is supposed to be Megatron for crying outloud. I could go on forever and it would not change a thing. This review is the exact same mess the film was. What a disappointment! 3 stars for the very nice rendition of a very virile independent Lockdown and the Dinobots randomly ruining anything in their pass (but unable to coordinate their own movements...anyhow, I am done here too).

Acting:Mark Wahlberg: Well, it's better than the Happening. Nicola Peltz: No improvement since the Last Airbender. Kelsey Grammer: Good actor, what is he doing in this piece of garbage? T.J. Miller: being himself. Jack Reynor: Annoying, rude and a coward. He plays that well enough. Stanley Tucci: Having a blast, obviously, by far the most enjoyable character.Cinematography: big, sweeping, much slo-mo, Michael-Bay-light. Direction: godawful. But what do you expect at this point?Plot: waaayyy to long and bloated. Not even the action can lift it up.Music: what music?Action: Big, loud, and looks pretty epic. Doesn't feel like it.VFX: Impressive, but not realistic in the slightest.Tone: as if you're in an aggressive whirlwind.

(Very minor spoilers.. I won't get into the story, but do mention a few instances or lines among the criticism.)So, I was a huge Transformers fan growing up. English isn't my mother language, but I watched Transformers without subtitles and actually learned English quite a bit before ever taking English classes in the 3rd grade, just from watching Transformers.When the first movie came around, I actually watched it several times. I absolutely loved it, seeing the Transformers and how incredibly well they had been done. Sure, the humor was there, but with Shia and the goofy family, it somewhat worked in a similar tone than whatever humor the cartoons had, yet kept the story grounded being serious enough to carry you throughout without rolling your eyes.The same can't be said about the later movies. With each iteration, I feel like the series has been pushing towards the kind of humor that Jar Jar Binks brought into the Star Wars movies. Ever since the "twin" autobots in Revenge of The Fallen, I've quite hated the way the transformers are depicted in general.This movie is a great example of what I mean; We do get introduced to new characters, but they are pretty much all complete humoristic caricatures of character cliché's. When the movie is having a bit more serious tone and taking itself and the story a tiny bit more seriously, it works - and reminds me why I'm even bothering to watch, but for most of the movie, it absolutely makes a joke out of itself and every character on the screen, with the exception of Optimus Prime.Even Bumblebee started off somewhat right; loyal, protective, yet having a bit more of a sense of humor. It made him different in the first movie, as he was a tiny bit more like humans, being able to crack a joke, when the rest seemed more "alien" and "robot" - not to mention serious about their task. This worked. Now all of them are depicted as jokesters and Bumblebee instead was depicted as this peevish, mischievous kid that can be provoked to act against all logic, just because someone says the car form he has taken isn't as cool as something else.I absolutely hate that.Then there's the one-liners - or whatever you'd wanna call them.. lines that are just put there to .. I don't know, bring around some supposedly powerful moment without there actually even being one.. like Nicola Peltz character suddenly asking her boyfriend "Well are you still glad you met me?" after doing the one heroic thing she does in the movie - and he goes "Always"... Yet nothing in the entire movie ever suggested that he would've changed his mind or not glad about it. It served no purpose. There are several these kinds of clichés that make you roll your eyes even if you're trying to like the movie.This was actually my third attempt at watching this movie and I finally made it to the end. The idiotic humor, the forced "heroism" and absolutely tired cliché's that keep on repeating (overprotective father thing needs to be reminded of every 5 minutes during the entire mid part of the movie - and we all know that in the end the boyfriend is "accepted" for doing right. We've seen it countless times.) keeps this movie from being even OK. The CGI is again top notch and I can't even imagine how good of a movie a talented writer and director could do with this kind of production value. I'm also trying to remind myself that the humor is there for kids... but truth be told, I've seen countless Disney and pixar animation films that are way less childish and smarter about humor and the pacing, use of the humor. Here, the humor just devalues the movie and makes you not take characters or the plot seriously.I'm planning on watching the next one, Last Knight after this... I see it has got a review score even lower than this. Oh dear.

I'm going to be perfectly upfront in admitting that I actually really enjoyed Michael Bay's first entry in the "Transformers" saga upon initial release in 2007, and I still maintain that it's a solid and entertaining work. It's not a great film by any means, but it's got a certain charm to its humor and it's wildly thrilling thanks to Bay's trademark kinetic visuals and ferocious editing. It's a perfect Summer popcorn film, full of eye-popping effects that still hold up and some charming performances from the cast.Then there were the sequels. Oh, boy. I will with some shame cop to the fact that I was one of the few defenders of the second entry in the series ("Revenge of the Fallen"), though in retrospect I've come to realize the movie to be nothing more than a woefully pale imitation of what came before- only bigger, louder and a great deal dumber. This was further compounded by the third go- around ("Dark of the Moon") which thankfully cut back on the stupidity of that second film... but still wasn't able to stand on its own thanks to its own plethora of issues with the troublesome cast (replacing series co-star Megan Fox with a vapid Victoria's Secret model being particularly mind-numbing) and an over-bloated run-time. Needless to say, by the time the credits rolled on that third movie, I was pretty much done. And I ended up deciding that I was content with merely revisiting the first movie while ignoring everything that came after.But unfortunately for me, curiosity reared its ugly head, and I ended up popping on the fourth movie, "Transformers: Age of Extinction", about a year back for laughs. I figured with a few beers in me and a couple friends to joke around with, it might be worth checking out once. But, yeah... it's a complete and utter mess. A confused, bloated, boring and shockingly hard-to-follow dumpster fire of a film. And it sadly signals the biggest step-down in quality of the franchise thus-far. Trading in those belly-laughs and genuine gasps of excitement that the 2007 film specialized in... and instead delivering consistent groans of disbelief and annoyance.The film has no coherent plot to speak up, and instead is comprised of a writhing mass of tenuously connected "story-lines" that don't really mesh together all that well. I watched the film... I really did. And I can't remember a darned thing about it outside of the brain- destroying action and obnoxiously loud sound effects. It's something about how the Transformers are all being hunted down, and Optimus Prime ends up becoming entangled with a single father played by Mark Whalberg? And at the same time, some weird tech-genius CEO is "cloning" Transformers for military application? And there's this weird Transformer Bounty Hunter who is somehow in league with the military despite the military supposedly hunting down the Transformers? And somewhere in there, there's Dino-Bots and a random Doomsday- Weapon peppered in? And the opening implies that the Transformers have been around even longer than previously thought? And about a million other things are going on as well? You'd need enough Ritalin to kill a horse in order to understand what's going on in this movie.But maybe you don't care about the plot or the characters, and you're just interesting in explosive action and crazy visual effects. After all, that's what these movies are all about, right? Well, even on that front, this film feels bizarrely underwhelming, and it's just kind of dull and monotonous. Not only have the computer-generated effects not improved since the third film- they look like they've taken a step back, and objectively look even worse than they did in the first movie somehow. The Transformers have that weird plastic-y look to them that comes with bad rendering, and the animation is way too smooth, making them look more akin to Looney Tunes than real-life robots in disguise. I was half expecting Optimus to dig himself to Albuquerque by the time the film ended... And the action is so overdone that it loses all impact. The first film was so clever in how it built up to its explosive climax. This one just basically throws everything at the lens possible as often as it can, and it completely desensitizes the audience. You can't go so excessive so often, or else it loses meaning.And don't even get me started on the downright creepy and unsettling "Romeo and Juliet Law" subplot the film likes to throw in your face constantly. Yeah, the film has several scenes dedicated to the fact that the protagonist's 17-year-old daughter is dating a 20-year-old after they met in High School. OK, whatever, it happens I guess. But the movie doesn't just let it go... it reminds us of this fact way too often and goes into long-winded spiels about how it's "totally legal", and it becomes really unsettling really quickly. It feels less like the movie trying to set up conflict... and more like Michael Bay trying to explain why he thinks it's OK to objectify young women. It's really gross how much the film is obsessed with this minute plot- point.If there's one thing I can say to the film's credit, it's that Whalberg is a very likable and charismatic actor, and he's a good replacement for previous star Shia LaBeouf. And yeah, you do still care about the returning Autobots, simply because we've come to enjoy them after three previous films. But that's really all the film has going for it... The rest of the film is just a messy re-skin of what came before, but made way more convoluted and pointless by the needlessly excessive carnage, ridiculous script and creepy subtext. And for that, I give it a very poor 3 out of 10. Just stick with the first movie, folks. That's the only one that matters.