Movie "Review" - Transformers: Age of Extinction

Transformers: Age of Extinction/Rated PG-13/Paramount Pictures/Dir. by Michael Bay/165 min.

Recently, I recreated what I thought that screenwriter Ehren Kruger's writing notebook for the Transformers movies might look like (click to enlarge): 

Well, the latest installment fits the pattern perfectly, and really, what else would you expect?  When you go to a movie with the word "Transformers" in the title, you go looking for cool f/x, silly humor, and roughly 1,382,658 explosions, so reviewing a Transformers movie in the traditional sense is a pretty fruitless endeavor.  Suffice to say, the new one is a Transformers movie.  Way better than the 2nd one, slightly better than the 3rd, about as good as the first, but still not what you could truly consider a "good film."  Fun?  Sure.  But not good.  They're sort of like the Big Macs of the cinematic world: clearly artificial, obviously not good for you in excess, but when you're in that rare mood, they kinda hit the spot.

So, rather than write a scholarly review about the latest incarnation of the series template, here are the bullet points:

THE GOOD

 - Mark Wahlberg is cooler than Shia LeBeouf.   Always.

 - Stanley Tucci is better than John Turturro.  Always.  (Plus, he never strips to his undies or gets covered in robot urine)

 - Regardless of how much screen time they get (it's quite little), giant robot dinosaurs are awesome.  Always.

 - In spite of the plot sticking to the same loose structure, it's the first of the series since the original to surprise me, with interesting production design and truly involving action set pieces.

 - The dialogue for the humans is slightly less inane than the previous installments.
 - NO RON AND JUDY WITWICKY!!!!  Woo-hoo! 

 - Things do go boom real good.  The visual "wow factor" is still high.

 - While the 2nd of the series to be released in 3D, it's the first to fully utilize the technology.  There are moments that are pretty cool in 3D.

THE BAD

 - The dialogue for the robots is still stilted at best, laughably bad at worst.

 - It's criminally overlong. 

 - The plot logistics that lead to the big boom scenes are still ridiculously contrived.

 - While the autobots are not as interchangeably without personality as before, their personalities are terribly shallow and stereotyped.

Final Word:  It's more of the same, just a little better.  In the world of actual, for real movies, this would get a C-/C, but in the realm of Transformers movies  it's a full grade higher.