Michael Bay's mega-budget adaptations of the Hasbro toy line have all done incredible business at the box office, despite none of the movies being particularly good. Whatever shortcomings the franchise has in terms of writing, plot and character there is no denying that audiences can't get enough of giant alien robots beating the crap out of each other. Even though Bay claimed to be done with the franchise after the third installment, the director changed his mind and signed on for the fourth, in what was described as a 'soft reboot' of the series; set five years after the original trilogy and introducing a new cast of humans and several new Transformers. After watching it, it seemed that nobody had learned their lessons from the first three. The original Transformers trilogy revolved around Shia LaBeouf's increasingly-irritating Sam Witwicky, an ordinary young man that finds himself in the middle of an intergalactic war between the Autobots and the Decepticons and the cast of forgettable characters that surround him. The first movie actually provided a solid origin story in amongst the mayhem, before the $200m follow-up Revenge of the Fallen delivered a nonsensical farce that ranks as one of the worst blockbusters in recent memory. Dark of the Moon actually came in at a whole $5m cheaper than its predecessor, with Michael Bay proving surprisingly adept at shooting in 3D in an action-packed threequel that became one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. With the story seemingly at end, everyone involved promised that Age of Extinction would be a fresh start for the franchise. Of course, they lied and it just provided more of the same.
I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.
