DVD review: Transformers: Age of Extinction, directed by Michael Bay
The cinematic equivalent of sugar-loaded breakfast cereal in that you sort of know it's not that good for you but something just keeps you coming back for more. Also once you reach a certain age, you're supposed to realise there are far better options available out there.
Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci
Michael Bay
The cinematic equivalent of sugar-loaded breakfast cereal in that you sort of know it's not that good for you but something just keeps you coming back for more. Also once you reach a certain age, you're supposed to realise there are far better options available out there.
The buzz comes from the continuous stream of action scenes and all manner of mechanised monsters that spring to life and into battle. Leave it to the experts to explain who or what they all are. Suffice to say that the planet is in peril and Mark Wahlberg is on hand to add the down-home human connection.
Being a Michael Bay production it's loud and very proud of being so, never letting you settle down and concentrate on what is happening, who is who, and where these things keep popping up from.
Setting itself up some five years after the invasion featured in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), the bad guys are hunting down good old Optimus Prime, who's turned himself into a truck and is hiding in a barn while Wahlberg drinks brewskies and tinkers with his toys.
Bay then takes us crash bang wallop around the world, maximising his audiences with cameos from Hong Kong and the mainland, among other places, and from people specifically known in those markets, too, such as boxing star Zou Shiming.