Transformers 4: Age of Extinction (2014) review

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My favorite character, Crosshairs

"Crosshairs: Ugh, you just want to die for the guy. That's leadership. Or brainwashing, or something.
Drift: No, that is Optimus Prime."

Transformers: Age of Extinction is an American action movie released on June 27th in USA. It was directed by Michael Bay and starred Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, an inventor whose creations are the only things keeping his farm under his possession. He lives in the aftermath of the Transformers vs. Decepticon war events in Chicago which has made the CIA, namely Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammar) so paranoid that they have acquired the help of bounty hunter Lockdown (voiced by Mark Ryan) to take down all robots on planet earth. Yeager, who lives with his daughter Tessa (Nicole Peltz), borrows money from his employee Lucas Flannery (T.J. Miller) to buy an old broke down truck in hopes of selling it's working parts as spare parts to afford his daughter's college. But when he works on the truck for a while, he finds huge bullets and missiles in it. After powering it up he realizes that it's a transformer. His go to move is to report him and claim a $25,000 bounty which is put on any reported robots but somehow he doesn't want to give him away and believes that the transformers fought for earth not against it. Meanwhile Cade's daughter, Tessa is in an online relationship with a guy named Shane Dyson (Jack Reynor) which would be ok but the fact that she's only 16 and he's 21 makes her keep it a secret. With all that aside Lucas who technically paid for the truck tells the government about the robot in hopes of claiming the bounty. CIA cars show up but they are more eager to get the Transformer who is now is now identified as Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen). A battle scene breaks out between Optimus and the army CIA has brought lead by James Savoy (Titus Welliver). This is when Cade finally meets Shane when he drives his racing car to the farm to save his damsel in distress. As there is no time to argue they make haste and escape the scene with Optimus Prime. Later they meet a team of surviving Autobots, Bumblebee,  Crosshairs (voiced by John DiMaggio), Drift (voiced by Ken Watanabe) and Hound (voiced by John Goodman).

Honestly to me this was the best Transformers film out there. I love the replacement of Sheila Lebeouf with Mark Wahlberg characterwise as Cade Yeager makes way more sense than Sam Whitwicky since I always disliked the mind connection he had with the Autobots. Also Mark Wahlberg was more comedic and more action at the same time. Stanley Tucci as Joshua Joyce gives a great comedic performance and the voice cast is pure gold. John DiMaggio in particuler. I actually went to the movie the day after the premiere and it was great in my opinion, full of action but like all the movies in this franchise had a downfall with some of its characters.

What ruins this movie in my eyes is the relationship between Tessa and Shane which is just unbearable. Not that I dislike Peltz or Reynor but their characters just sucked. The Romeo and Juliet law was awful, promoting minor and adult relationships was also a terrible message and basically every scene involving Tessa and Shane and every scene with Shane (I name the characters again because the actors did good their characters were horrible) brought the movie a rung down on the ladder to success. But Mark Wahlberg and the Transformers make up for that and bring a good action movie to the theaters. I am most likely going to Transformers 5 in 2016. And for reference to know why Shane Dyson sucked so bad here's a quote he says to Cade Yeager after his daughter is taken into Lockdown's spaceship.

"We're not going in there to save your daughter. We're going in there to save my girlfriend."

Just don't get two hot people on set and think that's great. Good characters are what matters.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

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To get an idea of different this is how different Toad looks.

"Charles Xavier: The past: A new and uncertain world. A world of endless possibilities and infinite outcomes. Countless choices define out fate: each choice, each moment, a moment in the ripple of time. Enough ripple and you change the tide...for the future is never truly set."

X-Men Days of The Future Past is an American Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi film directed by Bryan Singer (Also known for The Usual Suspects) which was released to public theaters on the 23rd of May. It revolves around the distant future of the X-Men where robots known as Sentinels are rapidly sent to destroy mutants and cleanse world of them. Meanwhile the last fighting group of the mutants which is lead by the now friends Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart). They survive the sentinel attacks by sending Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) who has time traveling abilities, to the future 2 weeks and warning them of the attacks. Later on they reach the verdict that Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has to go back in time to 1972 when Mystique/Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) shot anti-mutant Dr. Trask (Peter Dinklage) who invented the sentinels and feared America into using the sentinels against the dangerous seeming mutants. The plan works and Wolverine wakes up in 1972 where he needs to find Professor X and Magneto at much younger age to unite them and help stop Trask's assassination. Along the way he tackles his old buddy Hank/Beast (Nicholas Hoult) -who he had already seen the death of in the future- whom is protecting and helping young Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) whom has gone handicapped after taking medications to keep his super-mind from working and giving him a slightly easier way to leave normal. After Wolverine convinces Hank and Charles to help him in his quest they have to go and break a young Erik Lehnsherr out of a prison cell under the pentagon which is the most protected cell in the world. To do so they need the help of a rascal named Peter a.k.a. Quicksilver who has the power of super speed and steals from convenient stores often. He joins them with no doubt as he would love to break into the highest security prison of the country. By the way I love the smart gaming reference with him being so fast he can play Pong with himself.
I quite enjoyed this film mainly because it was a smart way to kill the past franchise and move on with their own story. Now, I haven't seen X-Men First Class but I surly will in the future (no pun intended) but this movie impressed me enough to go and watch X-Men Apocalypse when it drops.

Stuart Little 2 (2002)

 "Falcon: The party's over furface."

Stuart Little 2 is an American Adventure/Animation movie directed by Rob Minkoff (Mr. Peabody & Sherman) and released on July 19th 2002. The story revolves around a mouse named Stuart Little (Voiced by Michael J. Fox) who lives with the human Little Family. At first it shows his struggles in school and how hard life get for him when he tries to adapt to the human ways. For example he is the last substitute in a soccer gamebut then he is shot into the goal with the ball and is stuck in the net until his adoptive-parents Mr. Little (Hugh Laurie) and Mrs. Little (Geena Darvis) hae to help him out. One day as he usually is driving back home in his little car (no pun intended) a canary named Margalo (voiced by Melanie Griffith) falls into his passenger seat. Then Stuart sees a Falcon flying after her so he drives to his house as fast as possible and they get away. After Margalo is nurtured a bit and is healthier she reveals she had a broken wing and had been flying away from the falcon for a while until she finally fell. Later on Margalo and Stuart find a special connection as she is almost his size and they can do many activities together. But their friendship comes to a test when it is revealed that Margalo is actually working with the Falcon (voiced by James Woods) to steal all of Mrs. Little's jewelry. But then Margalo has second thoughts as she really likes Stuart so she tries to convince Falcon to rob another house. Falcon finds out about her feelings and takes her away and it's up to Stuart and his unlikely friend, the house cat Snowbell (voiced by Nathan Lane) to save the day and Margalo.

I know it is a pretty dull review as I haven't seen this movie in a while but it was the step forward for CGI animation to finally make its way into the big leagues of theatrical release. There wasn't anything bad about the film but the kind of cheesy relationship between Mr and Mrs Little is a minus. I give it a 8 out of 10 as it was one of my childhood's favorite movies.