Transformers 4 is a ballsy brave film

Blender Dumbass
February 15, 2025

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#transformers #MichaelBay #film #review #movies #cinemastodon #MarkWahlberg #StanleyTucci #VFX #CGI

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So here is a movie from Paramount Pictures that was executive produced by Steven Spielberg with Stanley Tucci playing a villain and Mark Wahlberg playing a dad of a teenage girl. The movie touches on very hard emotional topics of sexual abuse and age discrimination. And Peter Jackson does a very good job... Oh... wait... it's not The Lovely Bones... ah... yeah... so... Transformers: Age of Extinction!!!

Michael Bay went big with this one. I remember watching it when it came out and thinking how dumb the movie was. And how utterly enjoyable it was to simply take it as is. As a dumb blockbuster. Yet recently I went on a Michael Bay re-appreciation marathon and I had to try taking this movie seriously. And wow... That movie swings hard when you try taking it seriously.

The first thing to re-consider was some of the strange choices that the movie made. There is the infamous scene toward the beginning of the film where multiple military monitors have just a green screen on them. You could argue that the VFX team and Michael Bay just forgot to fill them in. Because they must have shot the film with all those screens green, to later put some footage into them. But the thing is, some of those screens actually have footage. People actually worked on those shots. So leaving some of them green was a creative decision. I mean, what? That was a creative decision. It's not like they didn't have the money to finish the shots. Or like that they completely forgot about those. No... They worked on them. And they were directed to fill in only some of them. Michael Bay, what was the thinking? I mean, it could be argued that not all of the monitors would be used in the field. And some will have nothing to show. And you know how when there is nothing to show some monitors just show blue. But why green? Was Michael Bay trying to make people talk about the movie? Was Michael Bay trying to insert himself into people's minds? Like, he is surely a genius when it comes to marketing. And look how long was the paragraph is about those few shots. I mean, bravo Michael, you have succeeded. Damn!!!

Then, if you want more ballsy things from Michael Bay, look no further than the Romeo & Juliet scene. So Nicola Peltz's character ( who is 17 years old ) is dating Jack Reynor's character, who is a bit older. Just enough to piss off Mark Wahlberg's character who plays her dad.

Now it seems from the backstory that her mom died from something as a teenager, after giving her a birth. Maybe she even died from the birth itself. Making Mark Wahlberg's character obsessively anti-relationship. Similarly to the type of trauma somebody like Lars from Lars and the Real Girl might experience.

This obsessiveness completely ruined the teenage years of Nicola Peltz's character. She went through a kind of age-discrimination, helicopter parent, paternalism situation. And yet came out of it with the worst kind of nightmare those helicopter parents fear. She is dating somebody older than her.

And while the movie pokes fun at Jack Raynor's character here and there. Ultimately he has an ark of redemption. And the big kiss moment in the end of the movie happens between the two.

It is as if Michael Bay listened to the criticism of how he shot Megan Fox in the first Transformers and decided to double down on his stance. Which, if you think about it, must require some balls of steel these days. And to those who will object saying that Michael Bay promotes illegal activity, Michael pulls a Romeo & Juliet law out of his sleeve. To both get away from the critics, while still poking fun at them, as in: if you disagree with this law, why do you agree with laws in general? Making this surprisingly profound.

I also liked that Jack Raynor's character is a racing driver. Making the whole relationship feel like something related to Moria's Race, an anti-ageism film that I made, about a racing little girl.

Of course, the movie itself is very much Bayhem! for Bayhem!'s sake. A lot of stuff blows up. A lot of cars. A lot of city destruction. This time they went to China, which was interesting. Michael Bay did use the setting for some things that were only possible in China. Like that guy in the elevator that seemingly out of nowhere knows Kung-Fu. And not just some Kung-Fu, but Wing-Chung specifically. Brilliant!

Though this time giving it proper respect, I didn't expect, but I actually cried in the end. This was emotional. This was good stuff. Even though it is broken by comic relief. Sometimes awkwardly. I wish the movie was just a tit-bid more melodramatic. But still, if you give it proper respect, it works. And it works damn well.

Happy Hacking!!!