Movie Review – Transformers 4 – Age of Extinction
Pre-scriptum – You will find this to be a rather long review…had
to kill some time on this 2 hour flight from Kolkata to Hyderabad. So please be
as patient as I have been while typing this out with lots of angst…
Expecting the expected, we trooped into the movie hall
anticipating a good bit of metal rub metal, we have come here to help you
humans, autobots…this bot…that bot, kind of imagery and audio-phonics. Was not
one bit disappointed as the familiar magic began to unfold. Pleasantly taken in on a slow but yet,
entertaining story build up. Presenting,
a young barbie doll faced teenager and her over protective dad…No boy friends,
no late night parties, no this no that, while our expression less doll goes
around in her micros educating her dad about her being good and yada yada yada.....and
you guessed it…with this familiar build up comes, surprise surprise…an existential
boy friend J….surprise
surprise…there will be dialogues later…with the Dad screaming a few words…thou
shalt not touch my daughter…she is too very young…and surprise surprise…the boy
wins over the Dad by saving him and his daughter from surprise surprise…the
vagaries of some bang bangs and Governmental Agencies and the bad bad bots. Hokay, so far so good, the movie is moving the way
you thought it would go…now this will happen and that is bound to happen..deja
vu…I’ve seen this earlier…I can write this script and so very predictable…but
where the heck are the bots ??? I need some action now…and lo…there you go…our
good old Optimus Prime comes back to life.
The very very battered Prime (remember Transformers 3..almost beaten to
pulp, sorry to metal sheets !!!) 40 minutes into the story, pop the bots and
some more bots and many more bots and soon the screen is filled with some tall,
some short, some new looking, some oldies..a bot here a bot there and a bot
there and another bot to the left and they are everywhere !!! Hokay, I’ve now gotten used to watching
gigantic human looking metals in Transformer 1, 2, 3 (the degree goes up),
Pacific Rim, a bit of Iron Man 1, 2, 3…and a host of others..High time, I
stopped going to one of these kinds any more…Alright, I was waiting for a
surprise element to make the story a tad more interesting. Was looking for an estranged “Mom” to appear.
You see, the dad and the barbie and the boyfriend…but where is the Mom?? Then I reckoned and thankfully felt…good No
Mom lest I would have to make do with some more clichéd exchanges of “Honey”…”Sweetheart”….”I
will be right back…” et al. Anyways,
back to the story or the lack of one…the bots are fighting with each other, rather
mindlessly, some more bang bang, some more clunk, thunk, ding, doong, dhunks
and while the screen lights up with some mega explosions, and the dolby system
is put to sound test…courtesy the bad bots, our father dear, daughter dear and
boy friend dear go unscathed..tut tut…they cannot die, fire cannot burn them,
bullets cannot pierce them, bombs cannot blow them, smart and super duper senses
laden dog-teligent creatures cannot find them ??? Come on give me a break…ZZzzzzzzzz…I slipped
into a slumber…What the suddenly awakened by a bizarre sound…only to find some
new bad bots beating the heroic Optimus Prime and his friends to
mittens..Zzzzzzz…nudge nudge from my Son a while later exclaiming…Dad, when can
we go home…while I look over to my right
only to find my spouse and daughter blissfully and oblivious to the madness and
cacophonic eruption unfolding on the screen, asleep. I felt sad, pity, remorseful for dragging
them to this movie…The pain ended thankfully a long time later. It was only 10 pm in the night and it was as
if we had slept the entire night…I wondered why spoke aloud the question: “Where
the heck are the bots?”
I guess you would have arrived at the verdict
and the numbers by now. Plusses, the
first 30 mins of the movie 3.5 out of 5 and 1 out of 5 for the rest 4
hours. Yes, the balance 1.x odd hours
seemed to be like 4. And the average 2
out of 5. Go watch it if you want to
catch up on sleep. Thankfully, I did not
get tickets in Prasadz Imax and the Atmos digital sound theaters, else, I would have ended up with a megatronic ache
in the head. Extinction was the name of
the movie…ha ha the Director has the last as he leaves behind a couple of transformers on mother earth
for a Transformers 5. I can hazard a name.
Transformers 5 – Obliteration. That
is, was and will be the last of the Transformer movies for me. I can tolerate no more lest I become extinct….Sigh
!!!!