Well, Greg, we just survived another Transformers movie.

The movie begins with scientists discovering that Transformers killed all life on earth 65 million years ago. We also learn that five years ago, Transformers were narrowly defeated in the ‘Battle of Chicago’, which left Transformer debris and technology scattered over North America. Then we meet Texas inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), his beautiful teenage daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz), and his friend Lucas (T.J. Miller). Cade dreams of using abandoned Transformer technology to create inventions that will make his family rich. Meanwhile, his home is being foreclosed, and his daughter is mad at him for being irresponsible and overprotective.

Greg, Age of Extinction puts the Stink in Extinction. This is easily among the worst movies of 2014. There are so many problems with the film that I don’t even know where to begin. Let’s start with the obvious: Director Michael Bay clearly worships at the altar of the “More is Better” philosophy of movie-making. It’s the idea that more action, more chase scenes, and longer movies are better. The word that comes to mind to describe this mess rhymes with “cluster-truck”. And yes, we see a lot of trucks in the movie, because of course more is better.

For me, watching this movie was an endurance contest, with millions of my brain cells, already damaged by watching past bad movies, fighting for survival. I’m shocked that Mark Wahlberg agreed to participate in this mess — he’s proven himself to be a skilled actor capable of attracting far better movie roles. In Transformers: Age of Extinction, Wahlberg is reduced to uttering one hackneyed and predictable line after another. For 160 minutes, he’s either being chased by Transformers or protecting his daughter from danger. I felt sorry for him.

The money this movie will make pains me; it is just so undeserving. Never has a major movie relied on so many tiresome set-ups and situations. There is the damsel in distress, shown in full shameless fashion about 6 dozen times, as poor Tessa needs either her dad or her boyfriend to save her repeatedly. There is the overused idea of government higher-ups conspiring against us all and sticking it to the little guys. There is a little Jar Jar Binks character whose main role is to annoy us even further. There is a 30-second speech that Yeager gives to a bad guy, Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci), a speech that miraculously converts Joyce to the good guys’ side.

Let’s examine the quality of the hero’s journey. To me, this film appears to feature a couple of group ensemble heroes:  The Yeagers are a family unit and the Transformer team, led by Optimus Prime, is a police/military unit. You could say that Yeager’s character does evolve, as his hatred for Mary’s boyfriend eventually turns to admiration. This change, of course, is painfully predictable and hardly convincing. Several basic elements of the hero’s journey are here, although they lack depth or interest.

I’m fascinated by the way movies portray the head villain. Grammer’s character, Harold Attinger, plays a stereotypical head mastermind who rarely gets his hands dirty and spends most of his time telling his henchmen what to do. We’ve seen this villainous structure in many other movies. For some reason, filmmakers have decided that while the main hero is going to take bullets, fall from buildings, and get physically battered, the main villain is a central command figure who only strains himself making all those tough evil decisions.

One other word about the Transformers themselves. They are imposing mechanical beasts that serve as yet another example of the movie industry’s fetish for size, especially when it comes to villains. How many behemoths have we seen in the movies this past couple of years? I was struck by the shape of these manly, macho mechanical beasts — they sport massive biceps and pecs and teeny, tiny, almost Barbie Doll waists. Do robots really need to show bulging muscles to do their dirty work?

Greg, you began this review by pondering whether there was a transformation in the movie. Yes, this is a Transformers movie and so of course there were plenty of transforming events. Chief among them was my transformation from a happy man at the start of the film to a bitter curmudgeon who felt robbed of two and a half hours of his life at the end. A more apt name for this movie is Skunkformers or Trashformers. This movie is borderline Hall of Shame material and barely manages 1 Reel out of 5.

The heroes were wafer-thin, predictable, and uninteresting. Wait, I take that back. There is one interesting character, Lucas Flannery, but he’s killed off early in the film. His quick exit was a portend of things to come. There are elements of the hero journey in this film but they are completely overwhelmed by the relentless onslaught of senseless chase scenes, explosions, and CGI chaos. Your rating of 2 Heroes out of 5 seems about right.

The villains were familiar retreads of villains we’ve seen a thousand times before. I thought Kelsey Grammer did a nice job in his role, but he and Wahlberg were both good actors trapped in a cinematic mess. I’ll agree with you that 1 Villain out of 5 is an accurate rating here.

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