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Health & Fitness

Review "Transformers: Age of Extinction"

Transformers: Age of Extinction (PG-13) Often reviews of “Transformer” franchise films are packed with the reviewer's incredible knowledge of Transformer history, identification, battles and general battling-bot lore. I come to you with none of that fan enthusiasm. Rather, I prefer to think that I suffered through another chapter in what seems like a never-ending saga of humans interacting with both good and evil gigantic robots.

“Extinction,” I think not. The numbers at the box office determine what is extinct and what shall live on in theaters, not the actual gigantic CGI robot battles. The goal for the first three-days of this fourth installment is a box office take of $100 million (US. And Canada), and that would be a record breaker for 2014. Do not fret if the goal is not met because it is the market outside of North America, like China, that brings in the biggest bucks. There is little doubt that Michael Bay's “Transformers” sequels will keep on appearing as long as the tickets keep selling and twelve-year-old boys and their dads have the pocket money to buy them.

To keep things fresh, director Bay has introduced a new cast of human actors in this fourth installment. To be fair, he added a few new robots as well. Do not look for Shia LeBeouf, instead put your money on Mark Wahlberg, as inventor/mechanic/dad Cade Yaeger, to get the Autobots going again. Nicola Peltz plays his hot teenage daughter, Tessa, and her race car driving boyfriend Shane is Jack Reynor. The bot cast will look much more familiar than the humans.

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The plot is straight forward and not too difficult to follow if you skim over some of the bot-lore. After the devastating attack on Chicago several years ago, humans are suspicious of all bots. In fact, there is a secret government plan to annihilate them. Enter Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) who is desperatelyly seeking the leader of the good guy Autobots, Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). Prime has wisely gone into hiding to avoid the wrath of Attinger and his cohorts. A new army of human-controlled robots is on the drawing table thanks to the technology of KSI, a tech company owned by Joshua Joyce (Stanley Tucci). Joyce has a recycling plan whereby he uses parts from all types of captured and downed robots for his creations. Perhaps the most interesting character to come out of this experiment is Lockdown, a new age bot that is neither Autobot nor Decpticon.

Expect 165 minutes of either intense robot-battle fun or squirming in your seat until it finally stops. The product placement in the film is blatant with nods to Chevrolet, Victoria's Secret, Waste Management, and, of course the biggest commercial placement of all, Transformers. This movie is perfect summer fun for young males and Transformer enthusiasts of any age. The rest of us should have seated the young fans and designated chaperone in the “Transformers” theater and walked into another movie at the multi-plex, preferably one sans robots.

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