*Minor spoilers... but I'm hoping you won't see the movie.*
This movie is purely unreviewable. It's the biggest piece of shit that I've seen in a long time, certainly of this year. I will defend Amazing Spider-man 2 against this any day of the week.
No, I do not like Michael Bay. I hate him. I hate him because I think he's doing this on purpose. I really enjoyed Pain & Gain... maybe too much. It gave me amnesia, so I went into T4 with my fingers crossed. Actually, I would've gone into T4 with my fingers crossed regardless. I don't WANT a movie to fail for any reason! And I definitely don't want to sit through almost three hours - THREE HOURS - of complete shit just for fun! After T2 and T3, I thought maybe Transformers 4 would be different. But nope. It was two hours and forty-five excruciating minutes of Michael Bay ejaculating on the movie screen in 3D. My fault for seeing it in 3D, I know. I thought it might add to the fun.
The good - it was different. Mark Wahlberg was in it, along with Stanley Tucci and Kelsey Grammer. They're decent actors, so when they're delivering the shittiest dialogue I've seen in a movie in the past six months, I cringe a *hair* less. I take in a deep breath and think, "it's not their fault," and I try my best to give them a pass.
The scenery was nice. But I could have stayed home and Google Earth'd 'China' and been more comfortable. That's like saying "I went to see the Hobbit because I like New Zealand."
Also, there were no gigantic robot testicles. Oh, and Megan Fox. No Megan Fox.
That's it. To recap the good - a slightly better cast with the same awful dialogue, pleasant travel guide scenery, missing Megan Fox, and no robot testicles.
How would I rate this movie against the others? T1, T4, T3, T2 (or T2, T3? I forget). Unfortunately, that's like rating four gourmet dinners of goose shit. One plate might have less goose shit than the other, but they're all goose shit.
The bad -
- I'm not sure what the plot was. I thought, "that must mean I'm stupid, try harder!" But when I tried harder, I came up with several plot lines... I wasn't sure which to follow. I'm pretty sure they were all equally absurd.
- Only the Autobots transformed properly in this film. The 'evil' robots (there were no true Decepticons) sort of phased in and out, like the way The Lawnmower Man disintegrated people. I'm pretty sure that's why they weren't in the commercials. The FX crew said, "Well... we can either transform the Autobots on this budget or the Decepticons... pick one. It's the worst CGI I've seen in a long, long time.
- Good and bad. One of the human characters, who was infected with Bay Humor (that ridiculous, say anything, almost slapstick style humor in which the camera stays with the character several seconds longer than it should after a punchline), died horrifically early in the film. That was good. That I was relieved he died is bad, I'm pretty sure. Come to think of it, that 'death scene' was completely out of line with the tone of the rest of the movie. It was almost like a second director came on just for that scene. Kudos.
- Remember how the Transformers could just scan other cars on our highways and change form at will? That was back in this movie. But it also gave them instant repair-o-matic ability. So why not use it all the time? Just wonderin'.
- Wait, back to the plot... why does Lockdown want Prime again? The Makers want him? As a trophy? Or wait, what? And why would he ever make a deal with the CIA when he can just turn his face into a giant cannon?
- Lockdown. He almost made the Good list. He was THE enemy in the film. Not Megatron, not Galvatron. Unfortunately, he was kind of formless, could oddly turn his face into a gun, could also turn into a car... lazy. Lazy, lazy, f'n lazy. Lazier than the Decepticons in the previous films. It was like fighting an enemy of gray silly putty.
- Why do some Transformers have tongues?
- At about 1:20 into the film, I realized I was staring at my left knee instead of watching the movie. Not long after this, the characters found an abandoned luxury train to spend the night on and I envied them for being able to sleep in the theater.
- Did you know Transformers smoked cigars? I didn't. But they do.
- Oh my god, the music was AWFUL!! Every once in a while, Bay would toss in another riveting low-angle shot and some horrid, teen angst moanfest chorus to remind us that this was really half-movie, half-music video.
- 2:00 mark and I admit that I closed my eyes. I refused to leave because, dammit, I made it through 'Showgirls' and 'Batman & Robin', I sure as shit was going to make it through T4!
- If the Transformers were terraforming Earth, then why allow it to ever revert ba... Nevermind.
- Stanley Tucci was a bad guy that suddenly, like at the flip of a light switch, went into that aforementioned Bay Humor... sweaty, schticky, *slurping on a juice box* (no, not kidding) rant... and then back to bad again, yelling at a group of elderly women to "Get the fuck out of the way." It was inappropriate, misplaced and ... wtf, it was just bad. Poor Stanley Tucci. I know he didn't want to do it.
- Yes, the Dinobots are in the movie. The end of the movie. Here they are and there they go! Poof. Sorry.
- About the end, where was Galvatron? He sort of pussed out, didn't he?
- I'm pretty sure Bay's Transformers are racist.
- Optimus Prime, not unlike R2-D2, apparently has hidden rocket boosters. He uses them to fly into space, signaling another sequel. Didn't see that coming. Phhbt.
Please don't watch this film. I saw the film so you don't have to watch this film. Take your kids to something else. If you're an older Transformers fan, you're spoiling the experience for yourself by watching it - rewatch the animated movie and call it an afternoon. I saw the trailers for this and I thought maybe I was getting Unicron, Galvatron, Dinobots... instead, I got an awful plot laced with bad humor, a terrible score, twenty-year old CGI layered over live action, and some dumb blond actress that wouldn't stop screaming for nearly three hours. And if you ARE going to watch this, do NOT see it in 3D. It adds nothing but frustration to the experience, as most 3D films do.
Go get a hot wax or something less painful than this.
