Holy crap Transformers Age of Extinction actually felt like they were trying to make the movies better quality. Sure it was still Michael Bay quality but
-Barely any of the stupid humor was in sight
-The Transformers characters actually had personalities and conversations with both each other and the humans.
-No Shia Labeouff
-One of the villains actually got some amount of character development
-No US Military propoganda gratuitousness. In fact they're kinda painted in a negative light.
-You can actually kinda sort of tell what's happening during the fight scenes.
Of course there were a ton of missed opportunities but it was still surprisingly improved compared to the two previous.
The Dinobots barely did anything. In fact their presence was only explained in like a couple lines of dialogue that were hard to understand thanks to the voice distortion decepticon characters have
Still long scenes in which nothing important occurred.
The artificial transformers cube shifting swarm gimmick got old reeeeaaaaal fast and felt kinda lazy
Drift was really underutilized compared to the other Autobots
Brain dissapears and reappears inconstantly and is kinda forgotten immediately after he exposits what he has to say. Not that he's someone to be missed, but it just tugs at your brain a bit.
That whole creators of the transformers subplot seemed kinda stupid and inconsistent with the already established lore unless they're planning to introduce the Quintessons
This movie is basically the culmination of all the murderous face ripping Movie Optimus Prime jokes. The Autobots as a whole are all kinda psychotic due to all the traumatic crap they've gone through and its uncomfortable to watch. Specially looking back at the first movie when they discussed how violent humans are and instead of agreeing with the angry Autobots Optimus replied with "Were we so different?". Compared to this one where he goes on angry tirades about how they've given up on humans and totally kills a guy in the finale.
MICHAEL BAY DEMANDS EXPLOSIONS AND ACTION SCENES CONSTANTLY WITHOUT END