The only thing that I could possibly say when it comes to this movie is - you had me at Optimus Prime. I have religiously watched all the other Transformers movies so I would not have missed this one for the world.
Fourth in the series, Transformers: Age of Extinction does not have Shia LaBeouf and no hot stuff like Megan Fox or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. What is does have is Mark Whalberg. And that ladies and gentlemen is about all. Oh, and that is the only saving grace of the movie, him and Optimus Prime.
The story of Transformers: Age of Extinction starts four years after the war we saw in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The humans no longer trust the Autobots (or the Decepticons), who would after they opened portals from alien lands to recreate Cybertron on earth! The government orders destruction of all Transformers and hopes to guard earth with their own set of man-made Transformers so Prime, Bumblebee and other Autobots go into hiding.
All is quiet till Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) gets hold of an old truck which turns out to be Prime. No surprise in this one! With Prime up and about Autobots and Decepticons start going about their usual fights and destruction business. Yawn.
And THEN, Megatron (you will remember him from Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) gets downloaded into one of the man-made Transformers and all havoc breaks loose. And they must be stopped. And here Bay throws in the Dinobots just when you were going to go get some popcorn thinking, ‘How much would I possibly miss!’.
With no LaBeouf and no pretty arm candy around Whalberg gets to flex his muscles around this movie as his pretty daughter (Nicola Peltz) gets to run around and scream a bit for her daddy. Tedious, true, but then all is good when Prime and Bumblebee get moving and kick some Decepticon and Dinobot ass well. And that is what salvages Transformers: Age of Extinction - Whalberg and Prime.
Now here is the sad part (as much as I hate criticising any Transformer movie) - salvages Transformers: Age of Extinction is nothing more than a lot of explosions, sparks and robots. It is sad if you expected a sudden revelation by Bay in this installment of Transformers.
There isn’t going to be any, not now and not later, either. Make your peace with that before you head in to watch this movie. And if rumours are to be believed, Bay has a fifth and sixth movie in the pipeline with Whalberg starring in both.
I am going to be grossly biased as I give Transformers: Age of Extinction a 3 over a 2.5 I gave Ek Villain.