By SETH HYNES
Transformers: Age Of Extinction
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer
Rated M
It took four attempts but director Michael Bay has finally made a decent Transformers movie.
Three years after the war with the Decepticons in Chicago, all Transformers (including their heroic leader Optimus Prime) are now outlawed and hunted by the government, and human scientists are even creating artificial Transformers of their own.
Story-wise, Age Of Extinction is a convoluted mess of poorly-explained villains and conflicts, limited suspense and dumb humour.
Much of the dialogue and acting is lacklustre, although Mark Wahlberg remains a solid action lead.
However, Age Of Extinction shows that Bay is slowly learning from his mistakes.
The stereotypes and annoying characters are kept to a minimum and Bay is no longer fawning over the US Army.
The action is also the coolest it’s ever been in this franchise and the robot characters are amusing.
Stanley Tucci is enjoyably hammy as a greedy inventor and Kelsey Grammer goes for broke with an intimidating performance as the main human antagonist.
This is a dumb action movie that you can safely turn off your brain to enjoy.
The first three Transformers movies (especially Transfomers 2) were obnoxious, racist abominations, but Age Of Extinction, while badly-written and kind of hollow, is action-packed and inoffensive.
Quite simply, it gets the job done.
But if you want a smart movie with giant creatures fighting each other, watch Godzilla or rent Pacific Rim.
