MTV Review: Transformers: Age Of Extinction

UK Release Date: July 5

Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 164 mins

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer.

Director: Michael Bay

Plot: (Ready for this?) Buff rag-and-bone man Cade (Wahlberg) finds a derelict truck parked in an old cinema. (Right…) He tows it back to his ranch with the intention of salvaging what he can so he can send his disgustingly attractive daughter Tessa (Peltz) to college. Unfortunately a black op division of the CIA turn up at his barn demanding to know where the truck is because they think it's Optimus Prime and they, well Attinger does (played by Kelsey Grammer… Yes, that’s TV’s favourite shrink/radio DJ, Frasier) owe Optimus Prime to Lockdown – an intergalactic robot bounty-hunter with a gun for a head...

Meanwhile KSI, a Chicago-based tech company led by Joyce (Tucci) has been melting down old Transformers to create brand new transformers intended for military use, etc etc.

Chicago gets smashed up, again. The humans don’t get squashed, again. And Optimus Prime is captured by Lockdown who gives the CIA some metal thingy called “The Seed,” etc etc. The action is transferred to Hong Kong. More stuff gets smashed up. The humans don’t get squashed, again. And Optimus calls on the help of the Dinobots to defeat the new army of KSI’s possessed Transformers. Yet more “stuff” gets blown up and then Optimus flies into outer space with the Seed, etc etc… Transformers 5.

Best Scene: After the Autobots receive a proper fender bending from Galvatron and his convoy of evil cars, Optimus hollers help from the Dinobots who help him and his beleaguered Autobots lay waste to Hong Kong.

Best One Liner: A nervous looking Joyce sort of, mincing, through a Hong Kong high-rise with the Seed swinging between his legs and shouting: “Alien bomb coming through!”

Date Movie or Mate Movie? If, as a young boy, you used to read Fiesta and Escort magazine with your mates, then this movie is for you – total car porn. And I’m not talking about Fords or Vauxhalls. I’m talking about big, beautiful cars with curves. However if your date really, really wants to watch a car porn movie like this, maybe you should think about transforming her into your wife. 

Scene Stealer: Other than Tessa’s very, very short, shorts? When Optimus is duking it out with Galvatron who actually turns out to be a “mega” foe he knows only too well…

WTF Moment: A flotilla of alien spacecraft hovering about a prehistoric Earth and casually wiping out the dinosaurs by turning them into some kind of unusual alien alloy. Now I actually stayed awake during science class at school and I know that fossils are mineralized rock casts of dinosaur bones found in sedimentary rock layers. They are not coated in shiny alien metal that can turn into talking robots. Because that would be stupid (even Creationists who don’t believe dinosaurs even existed would find that daft.)

Summary: This reviewer went to see Transformers: Age of Extinction whilst suffering from a cold/hayfever/man-flu combo. Sitting in a cinema for 164 mins was going to be challenging. Especially for my neighbour as I had been transforming handkerchiefs into soggy snot rags all day.

Thankfully 160 of those 164 minutes was just explosions and shouting so I could sniff freely without anyone hearing me (also my neighour fell asleep.) And that’s the conundrum with Michael Bay movies - they have all the ingredients to be a thrilling, edge of the cinema seat, pulse racing, slap up meal of a movie but they are well… just kind of really bland.

There’s only so much building demolition, robot warfare and cheeseball dialogue that you can stomach. And that mix was served up in the first Transformers movie. However this installment in the Transformers canon is much better than the second and third movie. One thing is certain; this movie is guaranteed to make a transforming alien truckload of money at the box office. Why? Because boys love cars, explosions, robots and going to the cinema.

By Michael Currell @MTVUK