What's This?
Grimlock -- the "T. Rex dinobot" -- from "Transformers: Age of Extinction." Image: Paramount Pictures
2014-06-30 04:14:05 -0400
Editor's note: Every week Mashable presents "Let’s Talk About," a look back at the biggest WTF stuff from the weekend’s new releases. If you haven’t seen the movie, be warned: This is a SPOILER MINEFIELD.
This week: Let's talk about Transformers 4: Age of Extinction ...
If you've been to a movie theater lately you may have seen a striking and enormous three-dimensional “standee.” There is Optimus Prime, the Great Leader of Men and Robots Who Change Into Cars, valiantly holding aloft his sword and riding Grimlock, a Dinobot, into battle.
I don't care if you've hated every previous Transformers movie, never watched the cartoon, never hummed “The Touch” or never even entered a Toys R Us — it is likely you saw that and that conceded “yes, I'd like to know more about how this happens, please.”
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Transformers: Age of Extinction, universally reviled by critics but netting an enormous $100 million domestic and just over $300 million worldwide in its opening weekend, promised us the introduction of cinematic Dinobots and it ... kinda delivered. So if you haven't found the 17 spare hours to see this movie yet, here's what actually happens.
At the two-hour and 15-minute mark (and, no, that part isn't a joke) Optimus Prime and his small posse of surviving Autobots realize that Lockdown (an evil Lamborghini that, unfortunately, does NOT have a Chico Marx accent) and his gigantic, magnetized spaceship are just too powerful. Hong Kong (where the final of many Transformer battles takes place) is being ripped apart and it looks like evil Kelsey Grammar is going to set off a device that will kill millions of civilians.
So: Optimus returns to the part of the spacecraft that he and Hound (the John Goodman-voiced Transformer) stole from Lockdown. In it are imprisoned robots-in-disguise, including “The Mighty Warriors.” The other Autobots (Ken Watanabe's Drift and John DiMaggio's Crosshairs) think Optimus is nuts to free these guys, and take a step back. Then the four Dinobots appear.
A dinobot from "Transformers: Age of Extinction."
Image: Paramount Pictures
We never get their names (and they're never called Dinobots), but longtime fans will recognize Grimlock (a T. Rex), Strafe (a flying Pterandon), Slug (a Triceratops) and Scorn (a Spinosaurus.) Optimus Prime, in his deep, resonant tones, announces that they are free — that is, if they agree to fight on his side.
There is a quick slugfest between Optimus and the Dinobots, and as the smackdown rages Optimus continues to spout platitudes about duty and honor. It's a weird scene.
Optimus Prime prepares to face down Grimlock in "Transformers: Age of Extinction."
Image: Paramount Pictures
But the mighty talking truck gets his point across, and soon he is, indeed, riding the T. Rex into the streets of Hong Kong, brandishing a sword. When the robo-beast blasts his firebreath it is, unquestionably, pretty cool.
The rest of the battle is typical Michael Bay — you either like this sort of thing or you don't. There are two cool Dinobot-specific moments, however, that are worth mentioning. In one, Bumblebee rides the flying Dinobot and in the other, when the magnet ship hovers over the creatures, they are sucked upward from a plaza and through a building into the sky. There's something about seeing a massive, flailing Triceratops penetrating glass and steel that will stick with me for some time. Other than that, I think most will agree, the Dinobots are something of a letdown.
After the baddies are driven off, Optimus Prime delivers a number of wrap-up speeches. As many audience members will already be hitting the bathrooms, he turns to the Dinobots and says “YOU ARE FREE!” And then these colossal and powerful creatures beholden to no one race off into the hills beyond Hong Kong. Yikes. We'll see if Optimus is held to task for this in the sequel.
Do you want more Dinobots for the sequel, or was a cameo enough? Wait — you actually think about this stuff? Sound off in the comments.
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