Transformers: Age of Extinction is More Than Shrapnel in Your Eye

WARNING: Could contain mild spoilers.

I wasn’t expecting to see Transformers: Age of Extinction until long after all the reviews had been written and nobody cared anymore. Thanks to a friend who really wanted to see this movie, that expectation was shattered. Now, I have something to say about it…and it starts with this:

Anybody who has said TAoE is just a bunch of robots punching each other…again… you’re WRONG. 

I went into this movie expecting far less than I received. I expected to just see robots hitting each other and leaving shrapnel in their wake. While that did happen, there was much, much more going on between the wakes of destruction.

There was story. What is the mystery behind Optimus Prime being a knight? Why does it sound like Knight should be capitalized? How does inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) stay so fit when he’s spending all his time inventing?

 With only one character in the entire movie being wasted (Jack Reynor as Shane Dyson) because the movie demanded a non-robot who could drive fast and do stunts, the human elements return to being a strongpoint in AoE.

Even the bad guys are less cardboard cutouts than full-blown characters with intricacies and needs. Perhaps the greatest trick Michael Bay ever pulled in this movie is that the bad guys aren’t the giant robots blowing each other to smithereens. The bad guys are human, too.

Kelsey Grammer puts in one top-notch performance as the indelible Harold Attinger, who starts off hiding behind computer screens streaming drones’ footage to him, until he is forced to join the action himself. And he does, with a vengeance I have seen more on TV than in movies of late. While he comes off as a bully in many scenes, it works. He is the main baddie after all.

Stanley Tucci plays billionaire scientist Joshua Joyce, who is determined to set the bar for generations to come after coming to understand how to use the material the Transformers are made of. He gets a chance at redemption, and once again, it works within the confines of this movie.

Cade Yeager’s daughter, Tessa Yeager is played convincingly by Nicola Peltz. Between having to show concern and disgust with her father’s choices…and later love for boyfriend Shane Dyson and/or Cade, Nicola shows us a little too much teenage angst…and a talent for being truthful in her portrayal of that angst. That the relationship between her and Shane never becomes believable is not a fault on Nicola’s part…that lies squarely on Jack Reynor remaining cold and disingenuous toward both her and Mark’s characters throughout all 150 minutes of AoE.

As you can see, there is a lot happening on the human front, a refreshing distraction from the ‘splosions we got used to seeing in the last two movies of the franchise. So what of the Autobots and Decepticons? There just isn’t a lot of the traditional faction tension we are all so used to.

 The movie almost ignores Decepticons out of hand. We are led through a story of the Autobots facing extinction. Humans no longer trust Transformers after the Chicago disaster five years prior. Not only that, but we are learning how to make our own. For reasons I won’t reveal here, the Autobots are being targeted and hunted, leading Optimus Prime down a dark path we haven’t seen in the franchise before. He no longer believes in the good of humans. He wants nothing more to do with us, and only Cade is there to try and convince him otherwise.

And then Dinobots. Dinobots!  Did I mention freakin’ Dinobots? While not used extensively in the movie, they are used well, and every second they are on screen one finds them self helplessly staring, wishing, if only I could be there for that!

Ultimately, the story of AoE makes sense, all the way through. From start to inevitable finish, nothing is so fantastic that it just couldn’t be. Everybody’s choices make sense, helping keep characters from feeling stiff and cardboard-y. There are amazing visuals. There are dinosaur Transformers. There is a human element on both polarizing sides that you can identify with. There’s social commentary on what’s going on here in America right now…some blatant, some subtly mixed into everything else. This is a summer blockbuster with heart. With soul. And the characters reinforce the fact that huge robots can still be modern and matter in today’s seen-it-all-already culture.

All pictures, names, and copyrighted material are owned by Paramount Pictures, Hasbro, or other respective contributors.

Hi. I’m James Neal. Thanks for reading today. Enjoy what I have to say? Follow me on Twitter or Like me on Facebook. If you enjoy webcomics, please consider giving my (still small) comic, Mandy and Murder-Bear a shot.