Review of Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) by Leon B — 03 Apr 2018

Transformers: The Last Knight.

(2017).

Plot:

Our world's greatest hero becomes our fiercest enemy when Optimus Prime launches a mission to save Cybertron by destroying Earth. Now Bumblebee and Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) must lead the Autobots against their former ally in the ultimate battle to save mankind from annihilation.

Review:

This epic movie certainly looked amazing and the attention to detail was great but from an entertainment point of view, it was a total let down. The storyline was all over the place, and the human characters became extremely annoying after a while, except for Anthony Hopkins (Sir Edmund Burton), and his reliable robot Cogman, voiced by Jim Carter. Mark Wahlberg (Cade Yeager) didn't seem like he wanted to be there most of the time, and Laura Haddock (Vivian Wembley), the Angelina Jolie lookalike, didn't suit her role. Stanley Tucci (Merlin) made me laugh and Josh Duhamel (Colonel William Lennox) played a convincing soldier but I didn't see the point to the little girl Isabela Monet (Isabella), who seemed to get in the way most of the time. Anyway, with the Autobots still at war with the Decepticons, as usual, the humans are out to capture all of the Transformers, and with Optimus Prime gone, they are all in hiding with Cade helping them to survive. Optimus Prime finds his dead home planet, Cybertron, and meets his alleged creator, Quintessa, who tells him that he needs to get Merlin's staff to absorb Earth's energy to restore their home-world. Meanwhile, Cade is given a precious mechanical talisman from a dying Autobot Knight, and while he is battling against the TRF drones, he is approached by Cogman who invites him to the UK to meet his employer, Sir Edmund Burton, who shows him the history of the Transformers and the power of the staff. To get to the staff, he needs the help of Vivian Wembley, who is a English Literature Professor and has the power to control the staff, so they set of on there mission, with Optimus Prime close behind them. Whilst battling against the TRF and Quintessa's soldiers, there is a race to get to the staff before it destroys earth. There was much thought behind the storyline but I personally thought that it was a right mess. It also lacked wit and there wasn't much depth to the various characters. With that aside, the action scenes were half decent and the transformers looked great but it wasn't enough to save the movie. I really think that they need to go back to the drawing board with this franchise, because all of the movies haven't been that great, and they seem to be getting worse. If they do decide to release another Transformers, they really need to think about character building, more than the CGI content, even though it made a decent profit at the box office. Average!

Round-Up:

This movie was directed by Michael Bay, who brought you the Bad Boys franchise, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbour, The Island, The Transformers franchise, the great Pain & Gain and 13 Hours. With so many hit movies behind him, I'm not surprised of the scale of this movie but I still wasn't impressed with the outcome. The corny script and poor acting has been the main problem with the whole franchise but they all seem to make a lot of money, for some unknown reason. With another Transformers movie in the pipeline, due to be released in 2019, I hope that they choose another director for the project, who will give it a fresh concept, and hopefully a decent cast.

Budget: $217million.

Worldwide Gross: $605.5million.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi.

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, Santiago Cabrera, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Isabela Moner, Jerrod Carmichael, with the voices from Peter Cullen, John Goodman, Ken Watanabe, Jim Carter, Steve Buscemi and Omar Sy. 4/10.