Cranking up the volume
Print Edition
CRASH. Shatter. Boom. Crash. Shatter. Boom. Smattering of silly dialogue. Pretty girl screams: “Dad!” Crash. Shatter. Boom. Silly dialogue. “DAD!!!” Crash. Shatter. Boom.
What? Oh, sorry. We were falling into a trance there.
Which is, dear moviegoer, what may happen to you during Michael Bay’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” the fourth Transformers film and, at 165 minutes, precariously close to the three-hour mark that Bay undoubtedly will reach — by our sophisticated calculations, and at the current growth rate, with his sixth installment.
This time, there’s a whole new human cast. Most important, Mark Wahlberg has replaced Shia LaBeouf, The good news is that Wahlberg’s grounded quality, rough charm and really nice biceps make him a thoroughly welcome presence. The bad news: He isn’t immune to the numbing effects of some desperately cheesy dialogue written by Ehren Kruger.
In any case, we begin in Paris, Texas, where Cade Yeager (Wahlberg), a struggling inventor, is desperately seeking a big discovery. He’s also a widowed dad, and super-protective of his high-school daughter, Tessa.
One day, Cade buys a rusty old truck. Examining it back home, he soon discovers it’s none other than Optimus Prime, the Autobot hero, seriously damaged.
His assistant, wisecracking surfer-dude Lucas calls the authorities. What he doesn’t know is that the head of CIA black ops, Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer, expertly villainous) — is plotting to destroy all remaining Autobots in favor of a man-made army of Transformers.
So now, it’s evil humans pitted against the trustworthy Autobots. From here, it’s up to you. You can try to follow the ins and outs of the battling forces.
Bay is very talented at all things visual, the 3D works well and the robots look great. But the final confrontation lasts close to an hour. At some point, you may find yourself simply in a daze, unable to absorb any further action.
But one viewer’s migraine is another’s euphoria.
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