I entered into this movie with relatively high hopes. I mean, I loved The Transformers as a kid, and I was stoked to find out that I wouldn't have to see Shia LaBeouf in these movies anymore. The addition of Marky Mark isn't necessarily a good thing, but it HAS to be an improvement over Shia. I was unprepared for the movie that I got - it was disappointing to the point that I may just choose to not watch anything else from the franchise.
I'm not even sure who their target audience is anymore. This movie is rated PG-13 (just like the previous ones) for some simulated violence, sexual language, and more cursing than I remember from any of the other movies. The real draw for Transformers is that they transform from robots into cars and planes and other stuff that is fairly common - so they are "robots in disguise." The previous movies generated a lot of complaints due to the strange and complicated nature of the robots making most of them look nearly identical and some of them not even transforming into anything that could be considered a disguise.
Well, this movie steps that all up a notch. The evil military industrial complex has decided to hunt down all of the remaining Transformers (after the general destruction of Chicago in the last movie) and they are relying on a Transformer that transforms into a sweet Lamborghini Aventador. It's unclear why he does that even after having watched the whole movie. Anyway, the military contractor is gathering up the dead robots for some kinds of experiments. They wind up inadvertently developing new bad guys that they unleash upon the world.
Well, the new bad guys transform, but it makes no sense why they do. They routinely break apart into tiny little bits that swarm around and reform into the robots at will. This makes it even more strange that stabbing them in the head or shooting them in the head kills them - as they appear to be made of individual 1 inch cubes that can move and operate independently. The whole robot transforming thing - which was the reason the original cartoon existed - has pretty much been destroyed.
Another issue with this movie is that the f*cking product placement has gotten way out of hand. From GM to Pepsi, this has got to stop. I used to think that product placement wasn't so bad, as it adds a bit of realism to the movie, but this is completely nuts... just STOP. No one wants to feel like they paid good money to watch you make money off of commercials.
I heard that the Dinobots were in this movie, and I wondered how they were going to fit them in. They actually seemed to do a good job of integrating them, but they were a massive disappointment. They didn't look right, couldn't speak, weren't particularly intimidating, there was virtually no actual back story given, and they were only in the movie for like the last five minutes, and that was after a movie that was roughly 14 hours long. Why did it go to Chine again? I may never know.
Direction was an abomination
Effects were confused but okay
Acting was okay
Story was not great
Dialog was pretty rough
1.25/5