Transformers: Age of Extinction

"Sound and fury signifying nothing."

That's how one might describe Michael Bay's filmography. The latest entry, Transformers: Age of Extinction, is a bit different. I found it tolerable, more so than the other two sequels.

This sequel retires the other three films' entire human cast. The new star is Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a hapless inventor with a rebellious daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz). Cade specializes in turning junk into new junk. One day, he buys an old truck from a rundown movie theater. Cade takes a closer look and realizes that it is really the Autobot Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen).

In the last film, Prime and the Autobots destroyed the Decepticons once and for all. Their battle maimed Chicago. And now, a CIA squad called Cemetery Wind hunts down all Transformers. They do this with the help of another Transformer, Lockdown (Mark Ryan), who claims to answer to a higher power.

Years on the run have really wrecked Prime. But Cade's goodness gives him some hope for humanity. Prime assembles what Autobots he can to find the villains. What he finds shocks him: Transformers melted down into man-made drones. One such drone, Galvatron, is more than meets the eye. And his eye is set on "The Seed," a terraforming MacGuffin.

Anyone expecting lots of Robot action will get it. Prime and his fellow Transformers fight destructively across locations such as Texas, Chicago and Hong Kong. Its soundmix, co-supervised by consistently Oscar-nominated Greg P. Russell, handles the explosions and smashes nicely. The Transformers themselves look great. One set of Autobots, the Dinobots, are real highlights ... even if they did come out of mostly nowhere fast.

Out of all that sound and fury actually comes a story. It's about a shell-shocked Prime ready to quit fighting for the little man, and Cade the little man who eventually sparks his faith. It's really a captivating story. It's a bit ruined by the 165 minute runtime. We're made to think the last battle is in Chicago, but no, it goes on to Hong Kong. It felt slow at other times, but this was when the runtime was at its worst.

I said it about Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and I'll say it again here. Transformers: Age of Extinction is the type of film made for the big screen. That's one good thing about Michael Bay's style. Hopefully, someone will reel in the runtime of the next film. I can't imagine a four-hour toy commercial.