Review of Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) by Anzaan A — 20 Nov 2017

Transformers: The Last Knight," the dreaded fifth movie in the Transformers series is supposedly the last to be directed by Michael Bay and the last to star Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg plays his character Cade from the previous one. The "attempt" at a plot for this movie goes something like this: Cade comes into possession of an ancient Transformers artifact called the Talisman and he is the "chosen one" to carry out a "quest" for the transformers, while this chick named Vivian has to acquire Merlin's "staff" because for some reason she is the "only one who can wield it" and Optimus Prime heads to Cybertron to find out "where he and the transformers came from and what they're doing on earth." THAT'S this movie's plot. Lol this movie thinks it has a plot. This movie is completely incapable of telling a cohesive story. There is no beginning, middle, or end. It throws plot threads at you and expects you to roll with them. The most illogical plot devices occur in this movie. NOTHING makes any sense. It is so convoluted that the movie thinks the audience are idiots. How many times was I reminded of what the plot was throughout the entirety of this atrocity? I counted at least 32. Nothing of importance happens. Nothing is interesting, nothing is entertaining. The characters are so thinly written and poorly developed I didn't care who lived and who died. At this point in the series, I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE DAMN HUMANS! Just give us a movie about Transformers, not about humans. None of them are likable AT ALL. Everything involving the military, the government, Anthony Hopkins, it's all pointless! The movie spends so much time and energy on all the stuff everyone complains about with these movies that none of it comes across as not appealing, but rather annoying. It's an insult to our intelligence. The action scenes are the same lazy action scenes the other four Transformers movies feature. It's stuff that appeals only to teenagers who do not know how a movie is crafted. Teenagers like action and explosions and no talking, story, characters, or emotion. This movie appeals to those teenagers. There I said it again. Watching stuff just blow up and blow up and blow up and blow up and blow up and blow up continuously for two and half hours is extremely boring, especially since it's the only thing that has happened for five Transformers movies in a row. There is no entertainment value to be had just watching stuff blow up for a bloated and overlong runtime. And yes, the runtime is too long, YET AGAIN. Luckily, it is shorter than the fourth one which was a very drab and dreary two hours and forty-five minutes. This is about fifteen minutes shorter, but it easily could have been an hour shorter. Nothing content wise justifies the runtime of this monstrosity. It's still overstuffed, overlong, dreary, boring, and exhausting, just like the previous three. I'll give the first one a pass since I actually enjoy the first one. This has all the Bay-isms in it. The typical stereotypes, the typical humor, and the typical dialogue, all of which is stupid, offensive, and insulting. S many characters are made fun of in this movie for being different or having different accents you thoroughly understand why NOBDOY LIKES MICHAEL BAY. He is racist, sexist, and doesn't care about the audience. He cares only about himself and no one else. It shows. The two girls in this movie, in typical Michael Bay fashion, are all hotted out. The young girl is like 14. In what world is this right? Her tits just hang out the entire movie. The other chick just looks like a porn star. That's what this series has come down to folks, strippers and porn stars! Optimus Prime is literally in the movie for ten minutes to just say his name three times so that we don't forget about him and who he is and completely forget that this movie gives him the most sudden shift in character motivation I have ever seen, more sudden than Batman in Batman V Superman. If you came to see him wreck house, he is a total waste in this movie. Quite frankly, none of the Transformers really don anything in this movie. They all just kind of hang out and chill and insult each other with stereotypes. This is one of the worst of the year. I felt like I lost IQ points watching this movie. It is a loud, dumb, idiotic, incoherent, chaotic, soulless mess that appeals only to teenagers who like nothing but action and explosions and die hard fans of the series. It is worse than Age of Extinction. I'm just gonna give "Transformers: The Last Knight" an F-. Yes that is now officially a grade.With as many talented people involved in this project as there are, you would think that at some point they realized what they were making wasn't so good? That doesn't seem to be the case with Transformers: The Last Knight. However bad you thought the last few Transformers films have been, nothing can prepare you for the abomination of this film.

Hearing about all of the silly subplots this film had beforehand had me very skeptical about Michael Bay's ability to cohesively tell a story amidst all of the CGI-heavy action. Not that any of the last 3 Transformers movies boasted an Oscar winning story, but they at least had some sort of focus. Plus, Bay proved once again with 13 Hours that he can make a real film with real characters. But all of that gets thrown out the window with The Last Knight. Not only is it extremely difficult to get behind any of the character's convoluted motives, most of them don't even deserve to be in the film.

It's one thing to have a few humans ground this bigger than life story, it's another thing entirely to put the focus on the humans and have the Transformers be ancillary characters. This isn't about Transformers at all, it's about Mark Wahlberg's 'Cade Yeager' character being the chosen "Last Knight" and Laura Haddock's 'Viven Wembley' being the last surviving member of the Witwicky family. Because, you know, every important person in the history of humankind has been a secret member of the Witwicky's, protecting the Autobots from the world. Makes sense. In fact, the most popular Transformer, Optimus Prime, is in the film for maybe 15 minutes. Not that these films ever appealed to me, but I didn't go to see a Transformers movie for the humans, I went for the robots.

On that note, Bay duplicates what he's always done with these movies is make some impressive action sequences. It's the one thing I can't really pick apart. Even with that said, the action sequences don't add anything new to the series. Without any emotional connection to the bots or any detailed differences between them, it's all a bunch of nonsensical slow-motion CGI. Speaking of which, the constant slow motion certainly doesn't help with the excessive runtime. Even with Michael Bay coming out and saying it's "significantly" shorter than the last 3 films doesn't change how unnecessary a 2 and a half hour Transformers film is. Cut out the supporting characters who add nothing (Izabella, Jimmy, that physicist guy), remove the Arthurian scenes (because that was a missed opportunity, and god help us please take out all of the misplaced unfunny humor. When the film pauses for the audience to laugh and nobody even dares to chuckle, there's something seriously wrong with the script.

What's the solution here? We know Paramount will continue to make more Transformers films, and rightfully so (they make over a billion), and we know Paramount will inexplicably hire Michael Bay again (BC he's not going to retire). How can they continue to hire a guy who dismisses any nuances in the script with his own racist, sexist, and dated direction? Did they not gather a writer's room with like 10 renowned writers for this film? Well, I think the solution is to just stop going. I should have stopped going after the last film, but I held out hope one last time. As long as Bay is behind these films and directs without any care in the world, then I won't be considered part of the audience. Enough is enough. I'm done.Future generations will study this movie as the dawn of a new age in film-making. It has everything you could possibly want out of two- and-a-half hours of cinematic, action-packed gold; and so much more besides. Anthony Hopkins giving the finger to the police outside downing street and calling random people 'dickheads'? Check. A mad, four-foot robot butler who kind-of- but-not-quite breaks the fourth wall by accompanying dramatic scenes with his own incidental music, before firing himself out of a World War II submarine torpedo chute to catch a brace of tuna, cooking and preparing them and setting up the bickering main characters on an underwater date, as they're being chased by the military, on their way to the crash site of a 1600 year-old underwater spaceship, which contains the grave of Merlin. Um, check. And speaking of which; a drunken Merlin (played by Stanley Tucci) riding through the ancient and dramatic British landscape on horseback, wielding a mystical staff that controls an Autobot dragon, who goes on to destroy some Saxons and save King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table from certain destruction? Check.

Historical note: the Saxons actually won that wider war, they went on to become the English. Arthur was actually Welsh, although at the time Welsh and Scottish people were all just 'Britons', of Celtic origin. The Welsh word for English is 'Saeson', which means Saxons. Most English people don't realise this, but the Celtic peoples have never forgotten how they were driven out of their lands all the way back in the Fifth-Century. In Scottish Gaelic the English are called 'Sassanach', which also means Saxon. Both languages are still spoken today. (Don't tell the English.).

These are just a few of the myriad delights this mad film has to offer, there are many more besides. The fact that it has only gotten a 15% 'fresh' rating on the site that gave Paul Feig's Ghostbusters 73% just goes to show what politically-motivated snobs movie critics are at heart. This is genuinely the freshest, funniest, most exciting and emotional film I have seen in years. No wonder people don't make excellent movies any more, when original works of wonder and imagination are met with sneering and contempt, by the same people who fawn over politically-motivated rehashes that offer little or nothing in the way of entertainment.

Whoever would have thought that in the year Alien: Covenant was released that two of the absolute best, most enjoyable movies released would be the fifth installment of the Transformers franchise and Kong: Skull Island. Two movies which - unlike others I have mentioned in this review - are perfect slices of awesome entertainment, without a hint of pretension.

Michael Bay has finally made the movie he's wanted to all his working life. If he had only gone half-way with this film, it would have been a mess. Thank goodness he went all in and served us up such a magnificent, rousing spectacle!