We’ve arrived at another summer, so of course we have yet another Transformers movie. This, is the fourth installment in the big budget movie franchise based on an 80’s line of toys and cartoons. This is also the fourth Transformers movie directed by Michael Bay. Can Bay top his previous work with another helping of the robots in disguise? Read on to find out.
The Bots (Characters)
In this newest transformers film improvements have been made in the looks of the transformers. Each one’s look and personality is more distinguishable from the next than they have been in parts one through three. The most annoying thing for me about these movies is the fact that every transformer needs to be some type of stereotype. I understand that they need to have big personalities to make them interesting, but when I saw the Samurai transformer, I rolled my eyes. The new Autobots were all characters that I wasn’t familiar with, and I wasn’t a fan of any of them except for Hound who was voiced by John Goodman. Even he was a little too much. He was smoking a cigar the whole movie which was ridiculous.
This movie is also the first to not feature the Witwicky family. It instead stars Mark Walburg as Cade Yeager, the overprotective father of Tessa Yeager played by Nicola Peltz. I liked Cade and Tessa, but was rather annoyed by the other new human characters. The Lucas character was there mainly for comic relief. I was relieved when the films protagonists parted ways with him. None of the character are as interesting as Sam and his girlfriend in the first movie.
Just like previous installments, there are a group of human antagonists. Just like previous installments, they are part of a government agency and hunting the Autobots down. A lot of the narrative related to these characters is interesting, but they still feel like a rehash of the situation from previous films.
Wall-to-Wall Action
Given that this is a Michael Bay film, I think we all knew that there would be a bit of over-the-top action involved. All the action sequences were awesome and easily some of the craziest special effects I’ve seen this summer, but it gets exhausting at times. This is especially true in the last big action scene. It feels like it lasts forever! They probably could have cut this in half and still had a really strong scene. It possibly could have even been improved by being cut down a bit. Its almost impossible to keep track of everything that’s going on.
I liked the inclusion of the fan favorite Dinobot characters. Transformers fans had been waiting for them to show up in the live action films and Michael Bay didn’t disappoint on that front. I only wish they had been in the movie a bit more.
Conclusion
At this point, I feel what this franchise could use is a change of scenery and maybe a reboot. I’d be really interested to see a live action take on Cybertron. Other gripes I have with these movies is that they’ve spent too much time focusing on the human characters and not enough time with the actual robots. I feel like we never got to know some of the better characters. I wonder why there was never any real focus on Starscream (My favorite Transformer). Why did they omit Hotrod? He has a pretty cool story arc they could use. I’d also lie to see another director’s take on these character. Michael Bay should have stopped at the third movie.
I may sound like I didn’t like the movie at all, but I did. It was just weak compared to the better entries in the Transformers film franchise. If you’re into loud action movies with lots of spectacle, this one is worth your money. If good story-telling, great acting or gripping dialogue are things you crave, you might not find what you’re looking for.
