On Memorial Day, I took both my kids to see “X-Men: Days Of Future Past,” and one of the trailers we saw was the newest “Transformers: Age Of Extinction” trailer, and it is safe to say they lost their damn fool minds. Over the last six weeks, they've finally worked their way through the first three movies, and if you are curious who Michael Bay's ideal audience is, I think Toshi's reaction to the trailer says it all.
As the trailer ended with that insane shot of Optimus Prime hopping off of the dinosaur and wading into a whole crowd of Decepticons with his sword, Toshi and Allen both cheered, and, loudly, Toshi looked at his little brother and said, “Every one of those movies is made by Michael Bay, and that's why THEY ARE SO AWESOME.”
I stand by my assertion that the final hour of “Dark Of The Moon” is one of the single biggest action sequences ever staged. It's easy to say, “Oh, it's just CGI,” but the way Bay has been able to adapt his style to staging and shooting of these monumentally-scaled scenes is amazing. While I think that second film is terrible, I also think a big part of that was because the writer's strike forced them into an unwinnable situation. What Bay's done, from film to film to film, is he's gotten much more comfortable building out scenes that could only play out in this world, with these crazy giant creatures. He has embraced the idea of staging things on a totally different scale than any other action scenes anyone else is doing.
I find it hilarious that they're adding dino-bots, or whatever they're officially called, because it's one of those ideas I can't imagine anyone proposing with a straight face. But sure enough, when you see them in action, they manage to straddle that same line between the awesome and the ridiculous that the entire concept of “Transformers” so expertly navigates. We've seen several shots of Grimlock, the T-Rex, in earlier trailers, but this spot we're premiering today features a shot of what appears to be a robot Triceratops, which is pretty much straight up bad-ass.
There's a shot in this spot that's also in the new trailer, where it looks like an ocean liner is dropped on a city street and Stanley Tucci screams “OH MY GOD” in response.
Pretty much sums it up. I can't wait to see just how crazy this one gets.
“Transformers: Age of Extinction” opens June 27 in theaters everywhere.