Not since 2011 has a Michael Bay film depicted heroic sentient robots defending Earth from a threat of villainous sentient robots. The formula seems the same in Transformers: Age of Extinction, but as things unravel, it quickly becomes clear that this isn’t a war film like before. There is no impending doom. There is no invasion. There is no apocalyptic scenario.

In this movie, it’s all about personal survival, corruption and power.

After the Decepticon/Autobot war that took place on Earth in the last film, the American government adapts the Transformers’ technology in hopes of—of course—militarizing it for their own models of robots. But not just any robots. Not robots that transform into medical equipment or learning toys for kids. No. Robots programmed with data salvaged from Decepticons. Why? Well, because in the global arms race, the American government arrogantly wants brute force—that’s why. It’s not about good aliens versus bad aliens anymore. It’s just about having the most powerful technology so that the inhabitants of Earth can finally rid the planet of all form-changing visitors.

It’s a turning point in the series where Autobots, stranded on Earth, have to defend themselves from humans. And humans have the upper hand.

America gets so aggressive, in fact, that the few surviving Autobots from the last film are in hiding, actually fearing for their lives (Optimus Prime, clearly being the government’s biggest bounty target). The military—like poachers—desperately hunt down the characters that saved them countless times in previous films just to obtain more invaluable cybernetic parts for their growing American-made Transformer army. This complete shift in power shows that the government is even more of a threat to the main characters than any Decepticon before.

What’s impressive, story-wise, is that while the government is militarizing, a new Decepticon has been sent by some higher power in space to hunt down Optimus Prime as well. The acknowledgement of a “creator” somewhere trying to retrieve the Transformers is enough of a series booster to create the next film. Because of this, we get another series-first—a sense of another species being out there in space other than the Transformers. We don’t get to learn everything about the new Decepticon, but his mission and the government’s adaptation of Transformers technology are overlapping plots that always work well in unison, and never feel clunky or conflicting.

Like with all the movies in the franchise, the human characters are pretty replaceable. Mark Wahlberg, however, does do a great job of making us care for him. He sets himself apart from Shia LaBeouf by being immediately more hands on. We believe the relationship Mark Wahlberg’s character has with his daughter because he isn’t afraid to jump into action to protect her.