Where do I start? Firstly I must straight away point out that I do like Michael Bay's films, well, more to the point, I like his earlier work. In fact I have enjoyed every film up until the second Transformers. 'The Rock' is a personal highlight as is 'Bad Boys' and 'Armageddon'. There is also a bit to like in 'Pearl Harbor', for everything that is wrong about it, the actual attack is brilliantly executed and the final scenes pack some emotional weight. 'Bad Boys 2' takes things to the excess and the chemistry between Will Smith and Marin Lawrence is ever present. It also contains one of the best car chases ever committed to film. All of these films have one thing in common, they all have a story and some, not all have fairly comprehensible scripts.
'Transformers Age of Extinction' has no story, and what little story it has is unfathomable. It's a mess, a 3 hour bloated ugly excuse for a summer tent pole film. The running time is ridiculous, the action sequences become tedious around the 90 minute mark and the whole thing feels more like a cartoon than ever before. Its not a film, its a toy advert, it's Michael Bay sticking two fingers up to the audience. At first it starts quite well, there are many trademark 'Bay' shots and the whole thing looks fantastic. A couple of the early action sequences are well handled and there are some jaw dropping moments but things soon take a turn for the worst. Bay amps the film up to ridiculous excess, and the result is a coma inducing experience.
I enjoyed the first film in the series, the second was awful and the third was slightly better. This is on par with the second for awfulness. Things surely can't get any worse but on the basis of this we've got a whole lot of nightmares still to come.
1.5 out of 5 stars
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