Transformers Age of Extinction

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Seems to be as expected so. Was Jack Reynor in it much?

krudler

Fuzzy_Dunlop wrote: »

Seems to be as expected so. Was Jack Reynor in it much?

He's one of the main characters, he's with Walhberg the entire time

Sodeepithurts

krudler wrote: »

Saw it earlier, now I'm going to spoiler a lot of this, really though there's not much of this that can be spoiled. If you've seen the others and expect nothing but exactly the same you'll still be disappointed, it's mostly awful, like Revenge of the Fallen awful.

It's basically the cinematic version of paying someone money to put you in a sack, stick you in a rollercoaster that's on fire and then put it at full speed while someone hits you with a brick in the face. for almost 3 hours.

It picks up 5 years after the last movie, Transformers are on the CIA's sh1tlist due to all the mayhem in Chicago and they've gone into hiding, there's a secret task force headed by Kelsey Grammer (one of the few good things in it) who are hunting them down with the help of a bounty hunter transformer who I've genuinely forgotten the name of. Why he's doing what he's doing isnt really explained much other than someone else is getting him to do it, and yes, it sets up yet another sequel.

The first 45 mins or so isn't actually that bad, it like a Michael Bay tick the box game though. Down to earth father who just wants to provide for his kid but is overprotective? check. Sunsets? check. Shady military/covert types? check.
The absence of Shia and his idiot parents makes the new characters a bit more tolerable, but then once the 2nd hour arrives it just turns into more of the metal punching other metal (not in a good way, its impossible to make out whats going on 90% of the time) , crap humour, inexplicable shifts in location during action scenes ( is this a racetrack? oh not its a highway, why is there a factory in the middle of the road, why are we in China now?!).

It's all more of the same, setpieces so over the top they actually get boring, I genuinely burst out laughing when a character arrives to fight Optimus and hops out of one of those spaceship shuttle thingies that were in the last movie too, and on the way to the ground he blows up a factory. For NO REASON other than it looks cool and explodey.
I will give Bay one thing there are some very very big and very good looking practical explosions in among all the cgi rubble and sparks and metal and all the other guff being flung in your face. It's a pity the whole less is more thing has never quite sunk in with Mikey though.

Now all the reasons why it's terrible. plot..lol plot.. spoilers ahoy.

Optimus is once again a psychopath, he actually wants to murder people this time not just other transformers, and does too.
The Dinobots are in it for literally 10 mins at the end, you almost forget about them up until they appear, and none of them speak. In fact the only reason they even help the autobots is because Optimus kicks the sh1t out of Grimlock and threatens to murder him if he doesn't. I'm not joking.
There's no Decepticons in it, Galvatron is there but he's made by humans who control him..yup, so that's another storyline they sh1t on.
You know how a big complaint in the last one was that there was no character arcs given to any of the robots? well now there's a bunch of man made Transformers that actually have no names or anything, it's like they went out of their way to make you give even less of a crap about who's punching who.
More racism.
More pervy shots of the teenage lead female, and she's only 17 in this so it's even more pervy.
"Movies these days are all remakes and sequels, buncha rubbish" fcuk you Michael Bay.
More convoluting a simple story, did we need a sequence where Stanley Tucci is being chased through a Chinese tower block and is saved by a guy in a lift who knows martial arts? cos y'know all Asians know martial arts dont they.
Did we need a whole setpiece involving aliens on a shop trying to tentacle bugger Mark Wahlbergs daughter? at least i think that's what it was trying to do..

We've only ourselves to blame, on the plus side I saw it for free, which is annoying me now cos I could have used my free pass to see HTTYD 2 or The Grand Budapest Hotel again. If you're on the fence about it, honestly don't bother, it's every bit as sh1te as you imagine it's going to be. and it's the bones of three hours long.

Remember that scene in Man of Steel where the machine was picking stuff up and slamming it into the ground again? well that's ripped off in this, except instead of just that happening there's dinobots running around a building, humans trying to avoid things like ships, buildings, cars, freight containers and rubble, Optimus kicking the bejesus out of anyone who looks at him sideways, Stanley Tucci screaming like a girl, the sound effect is even more deafening and it goes on just as long. It's actually exhausting even thinking about it.

I was on the fence about seeing this, but after reading your review I won't be giving Michael Bay my hard earned cash

krudler

Sodeepithurts wrote: »

I was on the fence about seeing this, but after reading your review I won't be giving Michael Bay my hard earned cash

Don't, if you've seen the other three it's exactly the same but worse.

Basq

krudler wrote: »

Don't, if you've seen the other three it's exactly the same but worse.

Even Harry Knowles referred to it as (and I quote) "cinematic piss".. so we know it's bad!

Adamantium

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

I actually agree with a lot of what they were saying but I had to mute it about 2 mins from the end.

My ears are still bleeding! :mad:

Just playing the three Transformers movies together is the most damning criticism you could make.

Can't wait till 2020 or so when we'll have all 6 to watch :P

I could see a lot of modern trilogies being played this way and having them falling apart under apart, opening the eyes of even the most ardent 14 year old fanboy.

rockbeast

Basq wrote: »

Even Harry Knowles referred to it as (and I quote) "cinematic piss".. so we know it's bad!

Harry didn't get a junket trip?

I don't believe Harry could spell "cinematic" without the aid of a sub-editor:eek:

Will always love Kermode's review of III :D:D

Taylor365

New transformer movie budget : $210 million

1984 Transformer Budget: $6 million

A fool and his money....

Basq

Basq wrote: »

Even Harry Knowles referred to it as (and I quote) "cinematic piss".. so we know it's bad!

Don't worry, the studio will send him out a mug with the film title on it and Harry will go back and reevaluate the film and realise that it really is an exceptional piece of cinema that redefines just how we understand it as a medium.

rockbeast

krudler wrote: »

Saw it earlier, now I'm going to spoiler a lot of this, really though there's not much of this that can be spoiled. If you've seen the others and expect nothing but exactly the same you'll still be disappointed, it's mostly awful, like Revenge of the Fallen awful.

It's basically the cinematic version of paying someone money to put you in a sack, stick you in a rollercoaster that's on fire and then put it at full speed while someone hits you with a brick in the face. for almost 3 hours.

It picks up 5 years after the last movie, Transformers are on the CIA's sh1tlist due to all the mayhem in Chicago and they've gone into hiding, there's a secret task force headed by Kelsey Grammer (one of the few good things in it) who are hunting them down with the help of a bounty hunter transformer who I've genuinely forgotten the name of. Why he's doing what he's doing isnt really explained much other than someone else is getting him to do it, and yes, it sets up yet another sequel.

The first 45 mins or so isn't actually that bad, it like a Michael Bay tick the box game though. Down to earth father who just wants to provide for his kid but is overprotective? check. Sunsets? check. Shady military/covert types? check.
The absence of Shia and his idiot parents makes the new characters a bit more tolerable, but then once the 2nd hour arrives it just turns into more of the metal punching other metal (not in a good way, its impossible to make out whats going on 90% of the time) , crap humour, inexplicable shifts in location during action scenes ( is this a racetrack? oh not its a highway, why is there a factory in the middle of the road, why are we in China now?!).

It's all more of the same, setpieces so over the top they actually get boring, I genuinely burst out laughing when a character arrives to fight Optimus and hops out of one of those spaceship shuttle thingies that were in the last movie too, and on the way to the ground he blows up a factory. For NO REASON other than it looks cool and explodey.
I will give Bay one thing there are some very very big and very good looking practical explosions in among all the cgi rubble and sparks and metal and all the other guff being flung in your face. It's a pity the whole less is more thing has never quite sunk in with Mikey though.

Now all the reasons why it's terrible. plot..lol plot.. spoilers ahoy.

Optimus is once again a psychopath, he actually wants to murder people this time not just other transformers, and does too.
The Dinobots are in it for literally 10 mins at the end, you almost forget about them up until they appear, and none of them speak. In fact the only reason they even help the autobots is because Optimus kicks the sh1t out of Grimlock and threatens to murder him if he doesn't. I'm not joking.
There's no Decepticons in it, Galvatron is there but he's made by humans who control him..yup, so that's another storyline they sh1t on.
You know how a big complaint in the last one was that there was no character arcs given to any of the robots? well now there's a bunch of man made Transformers that actually have no names or anything, it's like they went out of their way to make you give even less of a crap about who's punching who.
More racism.
More pervy shots of the teenage lead female, and she's only 17 in this so it's even more pervy.
"Movies these days are all remakes and sequels, buncha rubbish" fcuk you Michael Bay.
More convoluting a simple story, did we need a sequence where Stanley Tucci is being chased through a Chinese tower block and is saved by a guy in a lift who knows martial arts? cos y'know all Asians know martial arts dont they.
Did we need a whole setpiece involving aliens on a shop trying to tentacle bugger Mark Wahlbergs daughter? at least i think that's what it was trying to do..

We've only ourselves to blame, on the plus side I saw it for free, which is annoying me now cos I could have used my free pass to see HTTYD 2 or The Grand Budapest Hotel again. If you're on the fence about it, honestly don't bother, it's every bit as sh1te as you imagine it's going to be. and it's the bones of three hours long.

Remember that scene in Man of Steel where the machine was picking stuff up and slamming it into the ground again? well that's ripped off in this, except instead of just that happening there's dinobots running around a building, humans trying to avoid things like ships, buildings, cars, freight containers and rubble, Optimus kicking the bejesus out of anyone who looks at him sideways, Stanley Tucci screaming like a girl, the sound effect is even more deafening and it goes on just as long. It's actually exhausting even thinking about it.

Dear, dear, god.:(:(:(

You've really done it this time, Mr Bay.

Say it ain't so, Joe

PS That is very well written. Hope it gets shared online.

ancapailldorcha

rockbeast wrote: »

Harry didn't get a junket trip?

I don't believe Harry could spell "cinematic" without the aid of a sub-editor:eek:

Will always love Kermode's review of III :D:D

I just watched it there now. It's truly excellent!

rockbeast

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

I just watched it there now. It's truly excellent!

"This is what happens when civilizations are about to collapse"! :D:D

pah

watched a fairly decent quality version online last night. when I say watched I mean the first 20 minutes then jumped through it a bit. then jumped along after the 90 minute mark watching about 90 seconds every 10 minutes. no matter where I stopped people were running and stuff was exploding. I don't think I missed much and glad I didn't pay anything to see it. first movie was ok, the rest are just muck.

krudler

rockbeast wrote: »

Dear, dear, god.:(:(:(

You've really done it this time, Mr Bay.

Say it ain't so, Joe

PS That is very well written. Hope it gets shared online.

I was just as curious to see if it'd at least be nice looking chaos, it doesnt even have one standout sequence where you think wow that was at least a single good moment, like the Autobots arriving to earth in the first one or the fight between Optimus and the three Decepticons in the second film. Not one. It's all just noise and more noise and explosions and more explosions and everything just melds together.

How on earth you can take a film that has robot dinosaurs in it and make it dull is beyond me.

constitutionus

well according to box office mojo its opened to over 300 million already

thats nearly a 100 million more than it cost to make.

so i reckon well be getting another one at least. seems ill be waiting a while yet for a bayless TF movie

link

http://boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=3865&p=.htm


http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers4.htm

BrookieD

krudler wrote: »

Saw it earlier, now I'm going to spoiler a lot of this, really though there's not much of this that can be spoiled. If you've seen the others and expect nothing but exactly the same you'll still be disappointed, it's mostly awful, like Revenge of the Fallen awful.

It's basically the cinematic version of paying someone money to put you in a sack, stick you in a rollercoaster that's on fire and then put it at full speed while someone hits you with a brick in the face. for almost 3 hours.

It picks up 5 years after the last movie, Transformers are on the CIA's sh1tlist due to all the mayhem in Chicago and they've gone into hiding, there's a secret task force headed by Kelsey Grammer (one of the few good things in it) who are hunting them down with the help of a bounty hunter transformer who I've genuinely forgotten the name of. Why he's doing what he's doing isnt really explained much other than someone else is getting him to do it, and yes, it sets up yet another sequel.

The first 45 mins or so isn't actually that bad, it like a Michael Bay tick the box game though. Down to earth father who just wants to provide for his kid but is overprotective? check. Sunsets? check. Shady military/covert types? check.
The absence of Shia and his idiot parents makes the new characters a bit more tolerable, but then once the 2nd hour arrives it just turns into more of the metal punching other metal (not in a good way, its impossible to make out whats going on 90% of the time) , crap humour, inexplicable shifts in location during action scenes ( is this a racetrack? oh not its a highway, why is there a factory in the middle of the road, why are we in China now?!).

It's all more of the same, setpieces so over the top they actually get boring, I genuinely burst out laughing when a character arrives to fight Optimus and hops out of one of those spaceship shuttle thingies that were in the last movie too, and on the way to the ground he blows up a factory. For NO REASON other than it looks cool and explodey.
I will give Bay one thing there are some very very big and very good looking practical explosions in among all the cgi rubble and sparks and metal and all the other guff being flung in your face. It's a pity the whole less is more thing has never quite sunk in with Mikey though.

Now all the reasons why it's terrible. plot..lol plot.. spoilers ahoy.

Optimus is once again a psychopath, he actually wants to murder people this time not just other transformers, and does too.
The Dinobots are in it for literally 10 mins at the end, you almost forget about them up until they appear, and none of them speak. In fact the only reason they even help the autobots is because Optimus kicks the sh1t out of Grimlock and threatens to murder him if he doesn't. I'm not joking.
There's no Decepticons in it, Galvatron is there but he's made by humans who control him..yup, so that's another storyline they sh1t on.
You know how a big complaint in the last one was that there was no character arcs given to any of the robots? well now there's a bunch of man made Transformers that actually have no names or anything, it's like they went out of their way to make you give even less of a crap about who's punching who.
More racism.
More pervy shots of the teenage lead female, and she's only 17 in this so it's even more pervy.
"Movies these days are all remakes and sequels, buncha rubbish" fcuk you Michael Bay.
More convoluting a simple story, did we need a sequence where Stanley Tucci is being chased through a Chinese tower block and is saved by a guy in a lift who knows martial arts? cos y'know all Asians know martial arts dont they.
Did we need a whole setpiece involving aliens on a shop trying to tentacle bugger Mark Wahlbergs daughter? at least i think that's what it was trying to do..

We've only ourselves to blame, on the plus side I saw it for free, which is annoying me now cos I could have used my free pass to see HTTYD 2 or The Grand Budapest Hotel again. If you're on the fence about it, honestly don't bother, it's every bit as sh1te as you imagine it's going to be. and it's the bones of three hours long.

Remember that scene in Man of Steel where the machine was picking stuff up and slamming it into the ground again? well that's ripped off in this, except instead of just that happening there's dinobots running around a building, humans trying to avoid things like ships, buildings, cars, freight containers and rubble, Optimus kicking the bejesus out of anyone who looks at him sideways, Stanley Tucci screaming like a girl, the sound effect is even more deafening and it goes on just as long. It's actually exhausting even thinking about it.

Brilliant review, reall funny, just sent you a PM... let me know. ;-)

IvaBigWun

krudler wrote: »

It's basically the cinematic version of paying someone money to put you in a sack, stick you in a rollercoaster that's on fire and then put it at full speed while someone hits you with a brick in the face. for almost 3 hours.

Superb

krudler

Actually I take back what I said about there not being a standout sequence, there's one, where there's an aerial dogfight over Chicago, it's actually pretty cool looking but short and uses the 3D tech well.

Bay uses the IMAX framing quite a lot too throughout, but really jarringly so, unlike say Nolan using it for full sequences the occasional jump back to 2.35:1 in TF4 it's constantly jumping around in the same scene, going from black bars to full screen and back between shots.
I'll put it to you this way, there's an IMAX shot of the lead female character from behind in Daisy Duke style jean shorts, in the middle of a scene where nothing else is happening bar talking (for a change) Bay's priorities on full display.

constitutionus

Oh here was up in the square today and theyre advertiseing its out on July 5th so looks like its got bumped up

Adamantium

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwkL53bH0PI

For the ultimate lazy amongst us.... :P

5:18 seems to be the only reason why the teenagers used to go to this (and me as I was dragged along by them in 2007,2009, and 2011), ask them about story or anything else and they used to get iuncomfortable

I can see how people like these movies, they're like the Call of Duty of the medium (though COD has more to say)

pixelburp

"When you’re talking about aliens, robotic machines which disguise themselves as vehicles and animals, you start to make your peace with the idea that logical sense doesn't have to be the be-all, end-all."

Ha, well at Ehren Kruger is being honest, that his scripts don't even make any lip service towards basic common sense or logic.

http://www.slashfilm.com/transformers-logical-sense/

constitutionus

just seen the vue are doing a midnight showing on thursday !

thatll be 3 in the fecking morning before ya leave the cinema, let alone get home !



looking at other cinema websites its gas that thanks to its bloated run time some of em only have 4 showings a day (including the 2d option).

johnny_ultimate

Pfft, midnight screenings. The 5 AM screenings of The Dark Knight Rises were the ultimate in pointlessly staying up late (or in this case early) to watch films.

It was wonderful.

krudler

10pm and midnight screenings are the norm over here, I could have gone to the first showing of Edge of Tomorrow, and I didn't cos I was tired and who turns up?


fecking Tom Cruise!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_MZERmVHNY

Wasn't a premiere or press screening or nothing, just arrived along to it. I go to that cinema all the time it's bloody huge.

krudler

pixelburp wrote: »

"When you’re talking about aliens, robotic machines which disguise themselves as vehicles and animals, you start to make your peace with the idea that logical sense doesn't have to be the be-all, end-all."

Ha, well at Ehren Kruger is being honest, that his scripts don't even make any lip service towards basic common sense or logic.

http://www.slashfilm.com/transformers-logical-sense/

Yeah but in the context of the universe you've established in the film you can still have logic, I hate this piss poor excuse for bad writing. "oh it's a movie with monsters/turtles/robots/space in it" soooo? should still make sense!

pixelburp

krudler wrote: »

Yeah but in the context of the universe you've established in the film you can still have logic, I hate this piss poor excuse for bad writing. "oh it's a movie with monsters/turtles/robots/space in it" soooo? should still make sense!

Oh yeah, I wasn't posting it as a defense of the Transformers films, just as a perspective on the mindset and thought processes its 'writers' go through. Astonishing to think a paid professional believes internal logic is optional just because of some fantastical elements. I imagine any genre writer that read Kruger's opinion laughed into their tea

It's funny 'cos on sub-forums like The Walking Dead, this depressing argument of Kruger's is used by posters: ack sure you can't be fussing over internal logic, they say, sure doesn't the show involve fictional monsters?

Adamantium

Supposedly Christopher Nolan is a big fan of Bay's work!

http://www.slashfilm.com/christopher-nolan-loves-watching-michael-bay-movies/

I know this is going to get me grief but Transformers (2007) is the equivalent of Star Wars (1977) in terms of the influence it has had on big budget mainstream blockbuster cinema for the next 20 odd years, for the worse probably. I do remember watching it in 2007, marvelling at the thousands of moving parts in the robots and sheer bombast of it. Actually the Star Wars prequels were probably on the same level in terms of their influence since 1999 to today

I think much of it has to do with that Bay is making robot movies (and they are lazy as you can get), but if is camera was focused on any other subject, we'd like him a lot more I suspect. I think we get caught up in the personalities of directors and forget these are 10,000 people productions.

Because I love the hell out of Armageddon, logic be damned.

A messy transforming robot does not go well with his style. His fruity style only works when CGI is at a minimum.

Armageddon was for me the last truly good movie he made, it even made the criterion collection.
A lot of things that I adore about movies, I can see in his early work.
He can make a simple shot look gorgeous, that you could never conceive looking that way

I fairness if you walked into The Avengers and Transformers with no knowledge of who make these things or the film industry, You'd be hard to press to tell who made each one.

constitutionus

but the problem is the "messy transforming robot" was his fecking idea!

there was no need for prime to have 10,000 moving parts. look at the amount of waste that goes on in the first flim, what with his fecking "ears" rotating and the like in the scene where theyre looking for the glasses at sams house.

that was completely unnecessary on the effects front.

his "Style" IS the current transformes look. and he pissed off many a fan inflicting it on the franchise. even the bloody toy company couldnt replicate it at the time.

Adamantium

This is GOLD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2THVvshvq0Q

He's no better than a dozen big name directors out there, so why this guy? I have no doubt there are kids out there that 20 years from now will say they will be directors, who were inspired to get the industry because of him.

There's also a serious "20-30 something nerd" contingent out there and I hate to use that word, but that's what it is, who never HATED this guy until he started working with the Transformers franchise.

In fact he made the Island, a great movie (one of his best) and also his least successful by far, so the audience has much to answer for. The same thing with the reviled Zack Snyder who made a stunning recreation of the comic down to the finest detail, Watchmen, were was the audience for that?

Big dumb action movies like Commando actually get put forth as good, not because of any previously unknown intellectual quality, but because everyone decided to agree that it was big, stupid fun and it's alright to enjoy big, stupid fun from time to time. It may be well be bread and circuses, but you know what? If I was a citizen of Ancient Rome, I'd have probably enjoyed a day out at the Colosseum every now and then too. Even if it involved slaughter :P

The best term for it is "lowest common denominator", which, sadly, has a fairly negative connotation. It shouldn't mean something bad, it should just mean that it's designed to be enjoyed by as many people as possible... and it shouldn't be surprising when it outperforms more targeted entertainment. The success of Transformers doesn't prevent the success of smaller, more intellectual fare... something which we're pretty much awash with on TV at the moment

I also have to laugh at some people's complaints about his blind patriotism or pride (as if we even know he believes in those things anyway, as if he mightn'd trying to say something) with regards to Armageddon and the like, people do realise the only country that could launch two shuttles into space and stood a chance against the threat was the USA? (and Russia, and the MIR station is involved too) Sami Raimi couldn't wait to show off sweeping shots of the USA flag in his Spiderman movies!

We don't see John Woo being crucified by native chinese over Chinese patriotism in Red Cliff. Why can't Americana be celebrated as much as any of them?

Great, brave video that elaborates on what I say:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/9491-Leave-Michael-Bay-Alone


http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/48-armageddon

cloud493

I always enjoy these movies hate LeBouf though so the lack of him from this should make it even better.