Transformers: Age of Extinction

Is this Michael Bay’s revenge? Is he lashing out because no one appreciated the underrated Pain And Gain, his sole attempt to make a ‘proper’ movie? Last year’s oddball comedy ran afoul of those waiting to hate it because of who was behind the camera; Mark Kermode wasn’t a fan because Bay’s giant robot movies have sucked his will to live (Kermode, however, loved Pacific Rim, a giant robot movie, because he loves Del Toro).

So Bay’s vexed and he’s taking it out on everyone - his fourth Transformers screams, ‘If it’s Michael Bay they want, Michael Bay is what they’re going to get.’ There are more battles, the transformers are bigger, the explosions are louder, the product placements more obvious, the shots of the girl a little pervier. There’s a giant robot brandishing a giant sword atop a giant fire-breathing robot dinosaur. To rub it in, the director has said that this is the first in a new trilogy. Oh, he’s mad alright.

Mark Wahlberg is a struggling inventor from Texas (Texas, ‘USA’, the insert reminds us) whose either tinkering in his barn or keeping daughter Peltz (short shorts, white vest, orange skin) away from boy racer Reynor (who holds his own). When he lucks out and unearths Optimus Prime, he brings down the full might of Kelsey Grammer’s CIA black ops who have been hunting down all transformers since the battle of Chicago.

Bay wasn’t bluffing with his new trilogy threat, as bar the CGI onslaught there’s little continuity with the previous three (no Labeouf, no Turturro, no Duhamel, no what’s-her-legs). But the film has no consistency either: Stanley Tucci’s focussed businessman suddenly becomes comic relief; Grammer’s plan to save American lives involves taking American lives, and needs the help of transformers to show everyone that Earth doesn’t need transformers.

The plot is muddled, the dialogue at times incoherent. What the film is trying to say about politics and creationism seems to contradict itself. The theme of freedom is in there too, but it’s the freedom to obey. And despite the kitchen sink mayhem of the Asian market-appeasing Hong Kong-set climactic battle, it still can’t top Dark of the Moon’s balletic carnage in Chicago. The lengthy running time is a real slog too (it wouldn’t be as long if they took out all the slo-mo shots).

But it’s no disaster. The funny bits are funny and Bay seems intent on opening up the universe (there are aliens now) so he has room to play next time out. Mark Wahlberg is welcome - the man’s got charisma and if they had to make a fourth Transformers movie, it might as well be Wahlberg than Labeouf, right? Tucci is fun, as is T.J Miller, and John Goodman’s Hound is one transformer that steps out of the background.

But where does it start getting silly? Where’s the line? Will the promised fifth instalment boast a giant robot brandishing a sword atop a giant fire-breathing robot dinosaur who’s piloting a spaceship that’s gone back in time to the first movie to catch the Prom? Please, go rent Pain And Gain and show Michael you’re sorry (and because it’s actually pretty good).