Transformer: Age of Extinction, Movie Review

Rating: 3.25 out of 5 Stars.

Wow, this movie is long.

Nearly 15 minutes shy of 3 hours long.

A full 2 hr. and 37 min. of Summer action and explosions.

This is either good or bad, depending on how you wish to view the situation.

Transformers: Age of Extinction is the fourth movie in the Transformers Saga, brought to us by Michael Bay who has faithfully held the Transformer reins since the beginning. This movie is a continuation, Shia LaBeouf free, which I'm honestly glad.  The consequences from the last Transformers play out with a whole new set of characters, namely through the Yeager family (Mark Wahlberg as father and Nicola Peltz as the daughter.)  Cade Yeager is an inventor who's trying to better the future through robotics.  Tessa Yeager is a teenager playing adult, worrying about bills and college while a scattered Cade hopes his inventions will lead them to wealth, meanwhile they face losing their home.

The Autobots, the good guys in the Transformer universe, are being hunted down and destroyed.  If you find one, you call and report it to the government.  If you don't report your findings, there are consequences of the unpleasant variety.

Cade finds an Autobot.  Reporting means getting reward money that can be a huge help.  Not reporting, but helping, means getting tracked down and becoming fugitives.

There's many aspects to this film I loved and found quite entertaining.  Good humor.  Great action.  And I like some of the new characters.  Unlike the past movies there wasn't as much sexual innuendo and potty humor.  Huge plus.  And the "Age of Extinction" plays off of the extinction of the dinosaurs and our own potential for extinction.  There's some really fun ideas presented, and I love the ancient dinosaur transformers.  Really fun stuff.

I didn't like how long the movie was.  There were points where I just mentally checked out.  The editing was poorly done at times, and could have been a whole lot tighter, allowing for less time in the theater, and a more concise plot.  I'm glad the story played out, because I didn't want a "Desolation of Smaug" situation.  Don't-Get-Me-Started.  So I'm glad everything was tied up, because there were times I was thinking, "They're going to end it here!  Oh wait, it's still going."  "It's going to end here!!" . . . "Still going . . ." " . . . yeah."

Still, this movie is a good Summer flick, and there are some great moments, especially with Stanley Tucci's character in the later half of the movie.

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, language and brief innuendo.