Blog Update #1

Rediscovering Old Review Notes

Recently I decided to empty out an old backpack of mine.  Inside I found some small, crumpled pieces of paper that had been torn out of a notebook.  I opened them up to discover that they were short film reviews from a number of years ago that I wrote during my breaks in college.  Therefore, I have decided to type up these reviews with the aim of (eventually) uploading them to this blog in the near future. 

Also, expect the next update of my Transformers Film Ranking soon.

Ranking the Live Action TRANSFORMERS Movies. Worst to Best - Number 4

Ranking the Live Action TRANSFORMERS Movies (Continued).

Continuing with my ranking of the live action Transformers films, from my least to most favourite.  Here is number four.

4. TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (2014)

“Autobots must escape sight from a bounty hunter who has taken control of the human serendipity. Unexpectedly, Optimus Prime and his remaining gang turn to a mechanic, his daughter and her back street racing boyfriend for help”

- IMDB Transformers Age Of Extinction

The fourth film was a soft reboot for the franchise. It featured all new human characters and robot redesigns but retained the continuity set up in the original trilogy.  I saw Age of Extinction  twice in cinemas, convincing myself that I liked it each time. It wasn't until I re-watched it at home on Blu-ray, away from the spectacle of the experience of the cinema, that I realised that it is just long, boring and also exhausting.

Jablonsky's score is the strongest point of this instalment and his collaboration with Rock band Imagine Dragons gives this score a more unique feel than the others.
I also really like Frank Welker providing the voice of Galvatron, Megatron revived in a new body.
Mark Wahlberg makes his franchise debut as Cade Yeager, bringing a new dynamic to the series as a struggling father trying to provide for his teenage daughter Tessa.  He is not quite as annoying in this film though, compared to the next one.

However, I could have done without at least two characters.  Firstly, Shane.  Aside from rescuing the Yeager's at their farm from the evil human task force Cemetery Wind in a car chase,  he does nothing, bringing nothing whatsoever to the story other than antagonising Cade about how he is sleeping with his underage daughter.  The other character is T. J. Miller's Lucas, a character I almost forgot about until I proofread this article before posting.  He is arguably the most annoying character in the franchise and only appears in the first forty-five minutes before (SPOILER ALERT) he gets killed off.  However, odds are you will not grieve, you will rejoice.

The Autobots, some that we know from the previous films and some new faces, being hunted down and killed by Lockdown, a Cybertronian bounty hunter, could have been an interesting plot point, posing a slightly different threat for our heroes than continuing the war with the Decepticons, 

I do not have as much to say about this one, it was simply "meh".  All in all, Transformers Age Of Extinction is a boring film filled with visual noise and annoying characters.  It is not the worst but it is a far cry away from how I view the remaining three instalments.