The future is back. The Tranformers’ franchise returns with possibly their last movie but of course we can never be sure of such things. This one was bound to be different with Mark Wahlberg replacing Shia as the protagonist which was not to my liking. Fortunately though he is playing a different character (There is no Sam in this one) which makes it slightly better because Shia was amazing and because Mark is any day a poor replacement for any body; especially for Shia since they are poles apart.

I did myself a favor. I did not watch the trailers – which are nowadays more spoilers than trailers (3 min long, all great scenes shown). Anywho the movie starts well. The cast is pretty amazing. Inspite of my bias against Mark (Cade Yeager) he is really good in this one and suits his part. I loved Nicola Peltz (his daughter) and I think she carried out the role of a smart 17 year old who looks after her dad, all while looking hot perfectly. Stanley Tucci’s character was fun as well.

I liked the first one and half hour or so. Decent (relatively) storyline, good characters and lots of action. Heck if they had clubbed this with the last 15 min and tied up the story I would have actually being completely satisfied. But then they had to do it over the top (Michael Bay). After the first hour and half, the next one hour was well…I don’t know what it was because I was tripping. I got zero space to breathe. Poles are falling, roads are getting shattered, buildings are falling, robots are falling, everything seems to be falling. Ear shattering ultrasound mixes with high frequency sound mixes with robots fighting each other mixes with conversation of characters mixes with… mixes with …everything is a mix! There is simply TOO much happening. You think one action scene has ended only to find that another has begun which is bigger and louder. I think people were relieved when the movie ended and their heads and body were still in one piece (perhaps that was the idea: extinction of us viewers).

I found myself covering my ears in that period (and it is not like I am new to intense action movies). A dizzy headache and a needless hour later I was out of the theater. But I had survived. Chances are you will watch Tansformers anyway (and I shall reiterate that the first hour and half and last fifteen min are great). However I suggest you carry noise-cancelling headphones along.

Overall Rating: 3/5