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Review: Transformers 4

By Christine Petralia

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Transformers: Age of Extinction

 

June 29, 2014

 

Out with the old and in with the new for this reboot/fourth installment of the Transformers franchise. While the film runs almost three hours, there is action all the way until the end and there is a lot of plot building. Mark Wahlberg is refreshing as Cade Yeager, a single father and engineer trying to make ends meet for him and his teenage daughter and ultimately the new best friend of Optimus Prime and the Autobots.

 

I’m going to try and make this plot simple, since it gets a little complicated when the Dinobots get involved.  It’s four years since the incident in Chicago when the Autobots and Decepticons left it in ruins. A CIA agent Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) wants to rid the planet of all transformers, both good and bad. He teams up with Lockdown, a Transformer bounty hunter, to try and track down all Autobots, including Optimus Prime. Meanwhile a business tycoon, Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), is working to create transformers that humans can control, using data from Megatron’s head.

 

And over in Texas, Yeager is struggling to make money, so he fixes things. He purchases an old rundown truck with the intention of fixing it up and selling it. However, upon further inspection, he realizes it’s a Transfomer – and not just any Transformer, but Optimus Prime himself. After convincing Optimus he’s trying to help him, they work to repair the damage to him. However, Yeager’s business partner calls the feds, and they swarm the land, causing destruction of course. Yeager, his partner, his daughter Tessa (Nicole Peltz) and her boyfriend Shane (Jack Raynor) go on the run with Optimus. They meet up with other Transformers, while Yeager hacks into a drone run by Attinger and built by Joyce. Everyone heads to Chicago to find out what the hell is going on, where they find the newly built transformers, including Joyce’s prized possession Galvatron. Once they set the new transformers loose though, Joyce realizes that humans can’t control them, it’s actually Megatron’s data that is controlling Galvatron.

 

But wait, there’s more! After Tessa and Optimus get captured by Lockdown, they are brought onto his alien ship and see that Attinger is working with Lockdown, who gives him a ‘seed.’ The ‘seed’ is brought to Joyce for research, but in reality it’s a ticking bomb that will destroy a city and turn it into Transformium, which is used to make transformers. Everyone heads to Beijing, where Galvatron activates himself and other transformers to try and track down the ‘seed.’ There’s more fighting and cool Transformers stuff, and then Optimus joins forces with the Dinobots to essentially save everyone. However, Galvatron gets away and vows revenge on Optimus – setting up the next movies I’m assuming.

 

Like I said, it was a lot of plot building and a lot of action, but it was also a lot of fun. Wahlberg is great, as always, and Tucci provides some comedic relief throughout the film, even when he’s the bad guy – before he turns good.

 

If you can sit through three hours of robot fighting, spend the extra money and see it in RPX or 3-D or IMAX. It’s worth it.

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Only true Seth MacFarlane fans will truly love this film that’s set in the west in 1882, but has modern day themes and conversations. It’s a love story, disguised in MacFarlane humor. It garners enough laughs to be a good summer comedy.

Fifteen years after two pods are found in the Philippines and an ‘earthquake’ wrecks havoc on a nuclear plant in Japan, it seems it’s happening again. Except this time, the pods have hatched into two MUTOs looking to breed and feeding off radioactive materials. However, a third monster, Godzilla, arrives to ‘rescue’ the west coast.

Mac and Kelly find themselves trying to balance a new baby and their old life when a fraternity moves in next door. In an effort to seem cool, they attempt to make friends at first, but it soon becomes too much with the crazy frat antics and all bets are off.

Taking place in two time periods, the mutants send Wolverine back to 1973 to save the present and future of their kind. Lots of action and destruction. A little tough to follow at times, but still fun in the end. Stay until after the credits for a peek of the next villain.

All works created by Christine McGrath; Centereach, New York  All Rights Reserved 2024

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