Not quite a reboot but forging a new path forward, the story takes place a
few years after Chicago was devastated in the prior movie. The city has been
rebuilt remarkably well, almost as if nothing happened at all. In fact it looks
exactly same. In the time since, the world has cooled on the idea of giant
killer robots hanging around, and that includes Optimus Prime and his Autobot.
Kelsey Grammer plays Harold Attinger, one of those non-descript government guys
who always have some black ops unit doing their own thing behind the
President's back. He's been out there slaughtering Autobots, including some old
favorites, with the help of Lockdown, a mercenary Transformer who desperately
wants to find Optimus. In exchange, Attinger will receive a 
Wahlberg, playing the same sort of homegrown lunk/intellectual he played in
The Happening, is lowly robotics expert Cade Yeager. His Paris, Texas business
has been hit hard by what looks like the worst economic depression ever, and
he's basically struggling to make ends meet while keeping track of his hot and
rebellious daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz). She's got a thing for bad boys,
though, and has secretly been dating a race car driver (Jack Reynor) whose
skills come in handy when everything goes to Hell in a hand basket. And it
takes a good stretch of time before that happens as we're treated to the
Yeagers' financial woes and familial squabbling; even though we know it will be
forgotten once Bay starts blowing stuff up. When Cade buys a beat-up old truck
at a bargain it turns out to be an in-hiding Optimus, bringing Attinger's goons
and Lockdown to his doorstep.
There's never been an excuse for how convoluted the earlier movies have
been, especially since...HELLO!!!....this is Transformers and the primary audience
is kids. So it's somewhat refreshing to have a story that's fairly simple and
straight forward with Optimus looking to protect a humanity that has constantly
stabbed him in the back. Does he finally reject humanity and leave them to
their fate? He'd be justified to do it, and the dilemma raging within him is
probably the most interesting development of the entire series. 
But as stated before, nobody comes to these movies for insightful character
development. They want to see stuff blowed up real nice, and as stated before
Bay just doesn't seem all that into it. Sure, there's more slo-mo and
gratuitous flag waving than ever before, not to mention an abundance of glass
buildings ready to be shattered, but what else? You can count on two hands the
number of times the Transformers do the "drop and roll" maneuver and
Bay shoots them exactly the same way every time. Same cars getting bowled over,
same skyscrapers toppling, it all just gets repetitive and deadening after a
while. By the time the action heads to China for the final stretch you've seen
it all, ad nauseum. Every critic on the planet is going to talk about the 165
minute runtime so why bother joining in? You know it's too long. I know it's
too long. The only one who doesn't know it and doesn't care is Michael Bay.
There are a couple of great scenes that really leap off the screen, both car
chases set in the middle of falling debris, leaping robots, blasting lasers,
and everything else Bay could think of. There's still that difficulty in
finding something for the humans to do while the Autobots fight, and for the
most part Peltz and Reynor are left to hide in the background, occasionally
stopping to make out. Wahlberg wasn't brought in to be on the sidelines and is
wisely thrown in the middle of every battle, something they simply couldn't do
believably with LaBeouf. Some curious decisions were made in the choice of Transformers to follow this time, too. While the Dinobots have been demanded by fans since the beginning, they're more monstrous than any previously seen version. Ken Watanabe voices the samurai-esque Autobot, Drift, while John Goodman is the cigar chewing Hound, neither of which you'd call "first stringers". Hardly any Decepticons appear at all but the one who does is the only one that really matters, setting the stage for the second chapter in what is to be a brand new full-metal trilogy. Every Transformers movie has been a greater success than the last and even if this one doesn't continue the streak this franchise isn't going anywhere for a long time. That will make a ton of fans very happy but everyone else may want to stock up on Excedrin.
Rating: 3 out of 5
