Transformers 4 gunning for Best Picture Oscar

It's busy season for film studios this time of year as they try to pitch their biggest works to be considered for that greatest prize of all - the Academy Awards.

However, it seems like Paramount Pictures is getting a little carried away with Oscar fever after it released a "For Your Consideration" list - pitching Transformers: Age Of Extinction (AOE) as a candidate for Best Picture of the Year at the 87th Academy Awards.

Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge Transformers fan and I was really stoked for the movie when trailers were released in May showing my all-time favourite character Grimlock getting the movie treatment and kicking all sorts of butt as a mechanical Tyrannosaurus rex.

But, while AOE delivered on the flashy action scenes expected of a Michael Bay film, it was also horribly short on substance - as you'd expect of a Bay film.

While the popcorn flick was a box office hit - it's the only film to collect more than US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) worldwide so far this year - it was universally given the thumbs down by critics, as evidenced by its status as the worst-reviewed of Michael Bay's four Transformers movies on Rotten Tomatoes, with an 18 per cent rating.

It's a long, draggy movie. Compounding AOE's unwieldy length and cumbersome pace is the movie's messy story.

And, while the live-action Transformers movies have done a great job of selling toys, AOE takes things a step further and practically peddles an entire slew of consumer products to the audience.

While it might yet deserve an award for visual effects and maybe even something for Steve Jablonsky's wicked score, AOE is clearly nowhere near Best Picture of the Year material.

Perhaps Bay should start his own category for Best Ad Placement Movie of the Year.

This article by The New Paper was published in MyPaper, a free, bilingual newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.