Michael Bay Outdoes Himself With 'Transformers'

By Darlene Donloe

Michael Bay, the king of Bang, Pow, Zoom, may have outdone himself.  I could review his latest film, Transformers: Age of Extinction with five words, bang, bang shoot ‘em up.  The film is currently open nationwide.

Even for Michael Bay, this film is over the top.

It’s nearly three hours of nonstop, high octave, high energy excitement.  Most of the action is redundant, but that’s not to say it isn’t fun.

Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) is back in all his glory, along with his cohorts.  But there are some other big, nasty Autobots on the horizon who aren’t too keen on Optimus.  Not to mention the government, who also has a bone to pick with him.

Mark Wahlberg is a welcomed addition to the franchise. He plays an inventor in a rural area with a hot teenage daughter named Tessa (Nicola Peltz)  and a friend who is a bit flighty. After Wahlberg’s character visits a dilapidated theater and unwittingly finds a huge Mack truck and takes it home – all hell breaks loose.

The latest film takes part four years after Transformers: Dark of the Moon. In that film Chicago was nearly annihilated. That film starred Shia LaBeouf.

In this one, the government has ended any Autobot-U.S. military joint operations and put a price on the head of Optimus Prime and his cohorts.

Kelsey Grammer plays Harold Attinger, a mean son-of-a- gun who runs a secret CIA unit called Cemetery Wind.  He has assassins who are hunting bots, which isn’t good for Optimus.

Stanley Tucci, who is great comic relief, plays Joshua Joyce, a man whose company, KSI, makes bot parts and has figured out a way to duplicate the inner workings of Transformers.

KSI has manufactured a nasty, big Transformer called Galvatron (voiced by Frank Welker) who give Optimus and his boys a run for their money.

What ensues is pure chaos.  The movie is loud, violent, funny, dramatic, tense and fun. Of course, we all know who is going to win in the end, but I won’t spoil it.

Part of what makes the film appetizing is Wahlberg and Tucci.  With those two in the mix, Transformers: Age of Extinction is worth the price of admission.

Transformers: Age of Extinction, directed by Michael Bay, stars Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Bingbing Li and T.J. Miller.

On the DONLOE SCALE: D (don’t bother), O (oh, no), N (needs work), L (likeable), O (OK) and E (excellent), Transformers: Age of Extinction get an O (OK).

Transformers: Age of Extinction is Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action, language and brief innuendo.  Running time: 2 hours 46 minutes.