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Transformers: Age of Extinction
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak (14th October 2014). |
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The Film
 The first 40 minutes of the film pulls triple duty, reminding viewers what happened previously in the battle of Chicago, setting up the story/plot elements for this film and also introducing viewers to the new human characters. It takes quite sometime before anything big blows up, I wonder how Michael Bay managed to hold off for so long? While there's plenty of action-set-ups, he doesn't blow his proverbial cinematic load until after this long winded and occasionally convoluted recap/new character intro. When he does Bay certainly manages to deliver mayhem and explosions that are bigger and more intense that all three previous films in the series combined. Sadly, and much like the previous sequels, the film's thin plot and uninteresting characters are all blown to bits along with all the Autobot and Decepticon casualties caught in the melee. "Transformers: Age of Extinction" takes place five years after the invasion of Chicago seen in "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" (2011). The Government now believes that all Transformers are a threat, and the Autobots are being hunted down. In hiding from an elite CIA unit tasked with bringing them down and all part of a larger conspiracy lead by Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) who is secretly working with Transformer bounty hunter, Lockdown (Mark Ryan) in order to locate Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). Prime, also in hiding as a broken down truck in an old run down theatre, using the last of his funds the truck is bought by Cade (Mark Wahlberg) a down and out mechanic/inventor, who is convinced there's something more to this old truck. His gamble pays off when the truck turns out to be Optimus, and with the help of Cade's daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz), her boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor) and their friend, Lucas (T.J. Miller) they band together with the help of fellow Autobots to fight this deadly conspiracy, exterminate the bounty hunters, battle Galvatron (Frank Welker) who is a resurrected Megatron, and eventually help the Transformers restore their faith in humanity. "Transformers: Age of Extinction" ditches Sam Witwicky (played by Shia LaBeouf) for a new human protagonist, Cade Yeager, his underage daughter (why this is important I'll get to later in the review), Tessa, her incredible Irish boyfriend, Shane and current comic relief character, Lucas - all of whom are about as interesting as an old radiator... Cade is the typical over-protective father, Tessa is the typical hot-yet-underage eye candy, Lucas is the equally hot man candy (for the ladies I suppose) and Lucas provides all the jokes to lighten things up. Two dimensional characters ironically populate this largely three dimensional world. To be honest there was nothing interesting in any of these characters, aside from a loose reliability factor pulled from the generic character handbook - I don't think I would have cared if any of them died and [SPOILER] when one did, he was largely forgotten within minutes. To make matters worse there's so much wasted supporting talent in this film - Stanley Tucci phones it in, Kelsey Grammer does the typical corrupt bureaucrat (not exactly a stretch), Titus Welliver is bada** and intimidating (he's pretty good at that), and Thomas Lennon has barely enough time in this bloated film to register an impact, they check in basically to cash some checks and add some semblance of credibility, when in fact they manage to accomplish the exact opposite. One of the (many) major problems about this film is that there's really no one to root for. None of the new human characters are worth rooting for, and more importantly neither are the heroes of this film, the Autobots. Over the course of four movies in the series, Optimus Prime seems to have ended up as a cynical a**hole, this is not the character I fell in love with as a child in the cartoons and no longer resembles anything that's "good" about the Autobots. The hits just keep on coming too, there are so many inexplicable moments in this film that I was shaking my head in awe of the filmmaker's brazen disregard for any intelligence/logic/reason/ of the audience at every turn. It's as if the writers wrote a bunch of "cool" scenes and stitched them together without thinking about how they should connect, or form a coherent narrative. One of the most inexplicable moments in the film involves Tess, a 17 year-old girl who we're constantly reminded throughout the film that SHE'S 17 YEARS-OLD and that we shouldn't have any sexualized thoughts about her (according to dad Cade), despite her being dressed in as little amount of clothing as possible, having a boyfriend that's older than her - who justifies their relationship as not being that of a statutory rape type because there's a law in Texas that says it isn't... oh and Shane has the law safely tucked away in his wallet to show to anyone that questions his relationships with young under aged girls - why? Maybe he hooks up with a lot of 17 year-old girls? But most importantly, why is this in the movie? This scene does nothing, what's the point? Can we please get back to blowing things up? Speaking of blowing things up, the technicians, FX and pyrotechnics crew used more explosives than we've ever been exposed to previously. Everything blows up, including things that wouldn't blow up or hold a charge of any kind that would cause an explosion to occur in real life. For example, when the Transformers smash through the trailer of a Bud Light truck crashing through the back of it where the cargo is being held - explosions go off, why? Because, explosions! I'm pretty sure if they burst through a naturally forming waterfall explosions would still go off. This is the level of ridiculousness we're dealing with. A recurring theme for this franchise is that everything needs to be bigger, badder, more intense and over-the-top to make the cut. Also almost every scene needs to be back lit by a setting sun. But in all seriousness if there's any aspect of this film that's actually fun it's the action sequences. They keep getting crazier as this franchise continues. Let's recap so far; the movie has tried to justify statutory rape and blown up many many things, including the city of Chicago, again. Poor Chicago, it can't catch a break and that's what leads us to the halfway point in the film! Just knowing that there's over an hour left to go from this point on is really exhausting. One of the more prominent marketing images for this film has Optimus riding a giant robot dinosaur, fans have waited patently for the Dinobots to appear, and when they eventually do it's spectacular. There's a loose explanation for the existence of the newest Transformers. They are introduced in the opening act, then finally make an appearance in the third act simply... because, they're there. Also Optimus riding atop a giant robotic T-Rex is awesome right? It was awesome, nothing brings out the inner Transformers loving child in me than a Dinobot wreaking havoc, but having to sit through two hours to get to that point is a real drag. Much like previous films in the series, it is rife with product placement and the filmmakers recently learned of the perils of such things (see here for more on that) what it comes down to is that this film was brought to you by The Pill from Beats by Dr. Dre, Bud Light, Victoria's Secret, and the Government of China... among a plethora of automobile companies of course, you're welcome. In the end "Transformers: Age of Extinction" plays out like a big budget 165 minute commercial than a film. The fact of the matter is that no matter what critics think of these films, Paramount will continue to churn them out, after all, "Transformers: Age of Extinction" is not only the highest grossing film of the franchise but the highest grossing film worldwide (with a box office taking of over $1 billion). Just let that sink in for a moment.
Video
Presented in a 2.40:1 widescreen ratio in HD 1080p 24/fps mastered using AVC MPEG-4 compression. If there's any part of this film that's guaranteed to be flawless it's going to be the audio and visuals. Shot primarily on the Red Epic Dragon in 6K, this transfer ported from the original digital source is about as pristine as a clear blue sky. The HD image is phenomenally sharp, detail is stunning, skin tones look natural, black levels are solid and the effects looks amazing. What more could you ask for, this can easily be considered among the top transfers of the year, certainly reference quality. I noticed some shimmering but aside from that not another flaw that I could detect. If you're going to watch this film, watch it on as big a screen as you can and on an aggressive surround sound system too (see below for audio review).
Audio
This film comes in no less than seven audio formats, and the first commercial Blu-ray to feature an uncompressed/lossless English Dolby Digital Atmos 7.1 surround track (this defaults to TrueHD 7.1 if your system can't process Atmos audio), there's also an English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround, English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1, Portuguese Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround track. My system is not capable of decoding Atmos audio, so for the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 surround audio, and it's as impressive as the video transfer. The track is incredible complex, layered, has terrific range and depth. Dialogue is clear and distortion free, surround channels are active with sound that runs the gamut, from subtle environmental sounds to the aggressive explosions, gun fire, smashing robots. It's all here and it delivers with a ferocious punch that will put your system through a rigorous work out. Optional subtitles are included in English, English for the hearing impaired, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Extras
Paramount has released this 2D version of the film in a three disc release, the film on the first disc with supplements on the second and a DVD copy on the third disc. The supplements included are four featurettes an eight-part documentary, theatrical trailers, two promos and a digital copy version of the film. Below is a closer look at these extras. DISC ONE: BLU-RAY This disc only includes an HD 2D version of the film, no extras are on this disc. DISC TWO: BLU-RAY "Bay on Action" (1080p) is the first featurette which runs for 10 minutes 45 seconds, this clip takes a closer look at Bay's style, how he approaches these films, shooting action and on filming on location among other things. "Evolution with Extinction" (1080p) is next, an eight-part documentary, this feature can be viewed individually or with a 'play all' option: - "Generation 2" runs for 15 minutes 53 seconds, this clip takes a look at how this film remains within the same universe as the previous films but highlights some of the differences including the new cast. - "Drive Like Hell" runs for 13 minutes 29 seconds, this clip takes a closer look at the cars and trucks in the film. - "Small Town, Big Movie" runs for 11 minutes 22 seconds, takes a look bringing a huge production like this to a small town in Texas. - "Shadow Protocol Activated" runs for 28 minutes 45 seconds, takes a look at Chevrolet's involvement in the film and one shooting on location in Detroit and Chicago among other things, including explosions! - "The Last Stand" runs for 11 minutes 3 seconds, the crew dressed parts of Detroit to stand in for Hong Kong, this clip takes a look at that. - "The People's Republic" runs for 12 minutes 54 seconds, this takes a look at the Chinese location shoots in Hong Kong and on the Great Wall as well as casting Chinese actors. - "Rise of the Dinobots" runs for 6 minutes 10 seconds, takes a look at the creation of these fan favorite characters. - "The Finishing Touch" runs for 23 minutes 10 seconds, this final part of the feature takes a look at the post-production process to get the film finalized and finished. "Just Another Giant Effin' Movie" (1080p) is another featurette which runs for 10 minutes 3 seconds, this is a behind-the-scenes look at how much fun the film was to make for the cast and crew. "A Spark of Design" (1080p) is a featurette that runs for 15 minutes 24 seconds, this clip focuses on the Hasbro factory and on designing the toys. "T.J. Miller: Farm Hippie" (1080p) is a featurette which runs for 19 minutes 43 seconds, this clip sees the actor having some fun with some fellow cast members, it's nice he got his own feature in the extras because he was one of the only enjoyable parts of the film. The disc also includes the film's original theatrical trailer 1 (1080p) which runs for 2 minutes 34 seconds and theatrical trailer 2 (1080p) which runs for 2 minutes 34 seconds. "Kre-O Transformers: Take Us Through the Movies!" (1080p) is a promo which runs for 3 minutes 42 seconds. "Angry Birds Transformers: Origin Story" (1080p) is another promo which runs for 1 minute 16 seconds. DISC THREE: DVD This is a DVD version of the film, and included in the case is a redemption code for a digital copy version of the film.
Packaging
Packaged in a Blu-ray case housed in a cardboard slip-case for first pressings.
Overall
Unless you're a super fan and/or very tolerant of style over substance then "Transformers: Age of Extinction" is for you. Otherwise you're not really missing much by skipping it.
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