Age of Extinction holds a dismal 18% on Rotten Tomatoes and 5.6 on IMDB and whilst there are better blockbusters out there these scores are a bit harsh. Most criticisms focus on the subplot between Shane and Tessa (i.e. the Romeo and Juliet law scene), the catering to the Chinese market, and the product placement. These weren't unwarranted but there were some improvements, like reducing the number of Autobots down to five and giving them some characteristics. I would be lying if a scene where Optimus Prime fights a robot dinosaur appeals to my inner 10-year-old. I personally think the bulk of the plot where Transformers are getting hunted and an company experiments on them would have fitted better as the first sequel.

It seems like a lot of years have passed since then, because Chicago looks completely rebuilt, only to be destroyed once again. But Bay has cast a whole new group of characters. He threw out Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox and the others and replaced them with Mark Wahlberg, a couple of no-names, Stanley Tucci, and Kelsey Grammar. So it's a brand new day in a world where 'Transformers' are being hunted by a secret military operation uncanonized to the President or anyone else for that matter for the cliché'd reason of money. Without a single shot lasting more than seven seconds (even the slow motion ones), we center on Wahlberg who plays Cade Yeager, a single father, raising a teenage daughter Tessa (Nicola Peltz), on their Texas farm, as he tries to come up with the next big electrical invention.

His barn is a makeshift lab where he has invented dozens of different robots who have trouble performing the most simple tasks. You would thing that this plot point would come into play later, as he is good at working with metal and robots, but believe me, it doesn't pay off nor come into play at all. Wahlberg's right-hand man is Lucas (T.J. Miller), who is the comic relief here, but I guess Bay received so much flack for his lack of of comedic dialogue in the previous films, that he blows up the comedic relief early on the film, leaving the rest of the film at a much darker tone than the three previous movies. When Cade is not telling his 17-year old daughter that she can't date anyone or have fun, he is purchasing some equipment and comes across a rusted out old 18 wheeler, which turns out to be a beat up Optimus Prime. Cade and Optimus become friends, but the CIA and their new ally Lockdown, a mercenary Transformer who is up for the task for taking out all Autobots in exchange for a seed, or bomb that can destroy a planet in order to create life for more Transformers, is one of our bad guys here.

So for the next two hours, Cade, Tessa, and Tessa's secret 20-year old race car driving boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor), are on the run from the CIA and Lockdown with Optimus Prime and a few other remaining auto-bots. We go from Texas to Chicago to Beijing, all of which are mostly destroyed by the ensuing fight scenes which are redundant and the same thing you've seen in the previous three movies, with the exception of the Dino-Bots making an appearance in the last few minutes of the movie. If you thought Megatron was dead, think again. CIA head operator Harold Attinger (Grammer) and billionaire inventor Joshua Joyce (Tucci) are in cahoots with each other to take out the auto-bots by taking the remnants of Megatron and learning how to build their own Transformers from scratch. But little do they know that Megatron is still alive and is now controlling the 50 new Transformers that Joyce built.

So it seems like Cade and his teenage daughter have a lot on their plates to deal with at the moment. Cade turns into an alien-gun wielding action hero while his daughter acts like a horrible person for most the movie by yelling at her dad and trying to make out with her older boyfriend in front of him, but gets to jump off a truck and kick a small goofy transformer with googly eyes once. Bay just seems to hate women as he has never had a decent female character in any of his movies, but just likes to show them wearing next to nothing through the entire film, which is how Cade's daughter dresses throughout.

The script is utter garbage with cheesy one-liner after cheesy-one liner, spewing from each actor throughout the 165 minutes. I've seen better dialogue on day-time soap operas, but I guess that's what you get when you hire writer Ehren Kruger ('Scream 3'). Is there anything good about this movie? Not really, but seeing it in IMAX, was pretty good, and the 3D didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out. I'd say the best part of the film was Stanley Tucci. His character is the only one that has a solid story arc and is fun to watch on screen. His frantic dialogue and expressions are very funny, but it is all short lived and happens too often.

Whalberg is always likable and it was good to see him here, but there wasn't really anything his character had other than clichés and bad lines. And Tessa and Reynor could have been played by anyone at anytime, as their performances were forgettable and lazy. At least Bay cast John Goodman as one of the auto-bots and we got to hear Bumblebee say a John Goodman line from 'The Big Lebowski', but other than that, every thing else was sub-par, even John DiMaggio, yes Bender from 'Futurama' is an auto-bot in this movie. I'm sure 'Age of Extinction' will make tons of money this summer, but it's a shame, because it definitely doesn't deserve it.

This is filmmaking at its worse, with terrible camera work, awful dialogue, bad characters, a bad musical score, and enough blatant product placement to make your throw up. Sure, the editors found a way to take Michael Bay's ridiculous style of filmmaking and turn the action scenes into something tolerable, but it barely works, and with it happening constantly for three hours, it becomes silly and annoying. The IMAX image and sound is amazing, but past that, 'Transformers: Age of Extinction' is just a horrendous mess of a film from top to bottom.

Good, enjoyable action flick!

Mark Wahlberg looking tough, saving his daughter and the world.

Totally not necessary to be almost three hours long though!?

A sequel movie that is not afraid to make fun of itself though. One of the best lines, "Man, I hate sequels they always suck and never do as good as the first." Bonus points for self deprecation!

Worth a rental - but forewarning it's a three hour tour.