Summer Movie Memories: The Fourth Transformers Movie Ambition Is Only Outmatched By Its Idiocy

My reaction to Trans4mers

Up until Labor Day, I'll be looking at seven different summer movies from Summer 2014 and analyzing what really made them stand out this summer, for reasons both good and bad. Obviously, SPOILERS for Transformers: Age of Extinction lie ahead. 


Transformers: Age of a Extinction really did come and go in a hurry no matter how one looks at it. The moviegoing public soon turned their gazes on the infinitely better Dawn of The Planet of The Apes, and numerous critics like myself were doing our best to rid the movie from our memories. A movie that made a billion dollars worldwide (thanks to China primarily) is now pretty much a forgettable footnote in this summers vast array of movies. But you might be asking yourself, how could something that has Mark Wahlberg and robotic dinosaurs fighting Frasier be that forgettable??

The movie itself answers that question all too well. It's a lumbering catastrophe that doesn't have even a single brain cell. The idiocy of its ideas and characters simply pile on endlessly. The worst part is just how mean spirited is, with casual violence coming as natural as breathing to our "heroic" Autobots. Optimus Prime is pretty much a sociopath, and in any other movie, would likely be the villain instead of the hero plastered on thousands of lunchboxes.

Now, the movies rampant financial success would normally indicate that people love trash, movies are gone, blah blah blah, you know that drill. But interestingly, as I said above, the thing vanished from theaters rather quickly. China might have eaten up, but even in other major countries, the films gross dropped from previous Transformers films. Here in America, it lost 30% in gross from the third movie, by far the lowest amount any live-action Transformers feature has amassed. Honestly, people may have finally reached their limit in terms of how much Michael Bay sponsored Transformers they can take.

The franchise will continue, and it appears it will with another director handling it. Hopefully going forward the characters get better, and they take advantage of all the storytelling possibilities this world has to offer in future films. As the financial figures for this one show, the franchise could be on thin ice, especially if audiences continue to see lackluster installments like this one. To that, I say hopefully future quality Transformers films aren't too harmfully affected by atrocious entries like Age of Extinction. Oh, and also..."We have a saying on my planet...I DON'T CARE!!!"

Tomorrow: How Godzilla Got His Groove Back