Review of Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) by Htgamer — 23 Jun 2017

I am a big Transformers fan, the Michael Bay films have generally appealed to me to a certain degree up until now, but The Last Knight is just pure rubbish. It comes close to Suicide Squad levels of bad.

Let's just agree that the first Transformers film was great. Thought Revenge of the Fallen was bad? At least it had Jetfire and the Fallen, it could have been better if it wasn't victim of a Writers Union's strike at the time. Thought Dark of the Moon was crap? At least it had Sentinel Prime, Shockwave, the giant Worm and Cybertron but didn't feature Devastator's metallic balls or the twins. Thought Age of Extinction was a joke? At least it had the cool Dinobots and Cybertronian spaceships with giant magnets. But The Last Knight is even worse. It's the worst Bay-directed Transformers film by far.

It's a series of nonsensical character plot arcs which are either forgotten later or thrown in the film in an atrocious way. No spoilers ahead, it's all in the trailers already. If you mix up King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin the Magician, 3-headed Dragons, giant spaceships, a female English Historian who looks for a man, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg's character) who just so happens to be single, a teenage girl, an English Lord and his Transformer butler, a human anti-Transformers paramilitary group named TRF, the Quintessons, and the Transformers, plus Michael Bay, you get The Last Knight.

Light spoilers ahead (no, not really). For some reason the TRF decide to make a deal with Megatron who asks for the release of some of his captive Decepticon comrades with laughable names such as Nitro Zeus and Dreadbot, but (unless I missed it) humans asked for nothing in return. The film's Writers even go so far as to make Antony Hopkins' character a member of the ancient, centuries-spanning "Witwiccan Order" to make fun of Samuel Witwicky (aka former Transformers lead actor Shia LaBeouf, who was fired just like Megan Fox). End of light spoilers.

OK we know the Bayformers film series never had any serious plot, but at least they always had spectacle which WOWed the audience. The Last Knight lacks even that. Sure there are robots bashing each other, but the fights are boring. There are scenes where everyone is firing their guns at the enemies but it seems more like they are shooting at nobody really. Then there is the torn apart Cybertron in all its giant-pile-of-rubbish glory. And there is a scene (as well as in the trailers) where 6 enemy robots place their heads in such a wonderful position for Optimus Prime to effortlessly cut them off in a single sword swing, and he's supposed to look badass but I just thought it was bad cinematography by Bay. Oh, the film even has Hot Rod in it but if you were waiting to see the Rodimus Prime storyline unfold you are wrong. The name of any robot in the Transformers films series means nothing, you could name them anything you wanted to but it's up to Bay as to what to do with them.

The only (maybe) positive thing in the whole movie is the Marvel-esque mid credits scene which is a tease for the next Transformers movie.

All in all, The Last Knight is a really bad film, even by the Bayformers low standards. There is going to be a 6th film for sure, but I hope Michael Bay stays true to his word and doesn't come back. I 'd rather see a complete Transformers film reboot. Start it all over, get the Transformers mythos right, and pretend the Bayformers films never existed.