Transformers 4: Age of Extinction Spoiler Free Review

I had the opportunity to watch Transformers 4: Age of Extinction last night. While I really liked the first movie in the Michael Bay series, regardless of how different they looked from the original cartoon, each movie after that, left me more disappointed.

This movie however started off really strong, but ended up dragging on for way too long. With a running time of almost 3 hours, quite a bit could have been cut to bring it down to 90 minutes without actually losing any of the plot.

As per a Michael Bay film, there was a ton of action, and things blowing up. Which is one of the few things that kept that movie going.

Visually, it was stunning, and I love seeing all the sleek cars. The way the Transformers from the original trilogy transform is cool, but the newer Transformers left something to be desired in their transformations.   But again, it comes back to the plot.  All style with no substance isn’t enough to keep me interested.

My biggest complaint is that I really think Michael Bay has no idea who Optimus Prime is.  In each movie he becomes darker and more violent, and I think that’s a bad direction to take one of the greatest heros of the 80’s. Optimus Prime was all about protecting life, ALL LIFE! This “BAY-TIMUS PRIME” is a hollow shell of a character compared to the classic Optimus we know and love.

I will say this much… I did enjoy this one more than I did TF2 or TF3, which isn’t really saying much.