Whatever your opinion is on him, it’s probably not news to you that Michael Bay is someone who movie fans tend to have opinions about. A populist creator of excess that has managed to land two films in the Criterion Collection series, his movies make money no matter how much people hate them. Technically talented, though often reprehensible, Bay’s use of stereotypes and violence often rankles the mind. ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ (hereafter ‘Transf4mers’) might be his most offensive since ‘Bad Boys II.’ It’s certainly his most artless and despairing.
The plot is as follows: Marky Mark picks up Optimus Prime at an old movie house (a meta-commentary gag that is either brilliant, and indicative of Bay’s own at-present self-loathing, or just lazy), the feds are rounding up all the remaining giant robots, the bad guy didn’t really die last time, and lots of things go boom. That there’s actually a scathing commentary about American capitalism and the failures of the patriarchy lurking just beneath the surface makes it all the worse that there are barely a dozen images in this 160-minute-plus headache that are even remotely worth looking at.
‘Trans4mers’ builds to a steady tsunami of garbage, climaxing with robot dinosaurs the way a bad family vacation might end with a breakdown and no cell phone coverage. Lacking anything in wit or joy or even a sense of composition, it is an excruciatingly monotonous plunge through the id of our cultural subconscious, which means that it might even be a decent allegory in spite of itself. Despite their stupidity, racism, and sexism, there are moments of juvenile glee, and even pop beauty, in the first three films (the third, ‘Dark of the Moon,’ is tops). ‘Trans4mers’ seems to hate the audience and itself in equal measure.
‘Trans4mers’ will be released on DVD/Blu-ray Tuesday, Sept. 30.
Robert Humanick is a contributing writer for slantmagazine.com
Follow Rob on Twitter @rhumanick
