Transformers 4: 10 Things That Sucked

10. It's An Hour Too Long

Transformers Age Of Extinction3Paramount PicturesThough the trailers for Age of Extinction looked surprisingly promising, one aspect that proved worrying from the moment it was announced was the movie's run-time: adhering to the rule that a movie sequel has to be longer than what came before, Transformers 4 clocks in at an absurd 165 minutes, running 21 minutes longer than the original film, 15 minutes longer than Revenge of the Fallen, and 11 minutes longer than Dark of the Moon. Few are going to argue with the fact that the first three movies are all way too long, and with Age of Extinction, this has been taken to near-unbearable levels, as the sheer exhaustion of sitting through this film certainly detracts from the visceral experience of, well, all those explosions. While not the worst film Bay has ever made, AoE is, with the exception of Pearl Harbour, certainly his flabbiest and most needlessly long, making little effort to pick up any forward-momentum during its establishing scenes, and instead wasting considerable screen time on "fun" banter between its characters. Given how many unnecessarily lengthy, talky breaks there are between the various set-pieces, it's clear that Bay and his editors should have been able to cut the run-time down by at least 20 or 30 minutes, or with a complete script overhaul, probably closer to 45 or 50. Even if the plot were still pretty inane, AoE would have been considerably easier to stomach if it didn't take up quite so much of our time. We can't possibly imagine that Bay will go even longer for Transformers 5, but then again, we said that about this movie too...
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.