*Directed by Michael Bay
*Starring Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Josh Duhamel, Isabela Moner, Peter Cullen, Jerrod Carmichael, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci, and Frank Welker
The Plot: With Optimus Prime gone finally encountering his maker on Cybertron, Transformers are scattered across Earth, and Cade Yeager (Mark Walhberg) finds himself in possession of an ancient Transformers knight artifact that has him on this journey to find the ancient staff of Merlin with his allies of Autobots, a Transformers historian (Anthony Hopkins), his robot servant and a hot British female professor while battling Decepticons and avoiding an epic plan of Cybertron destroying Earth because...Transformers movie.
If you haven't been following me as of recent I covered every Transformers film on my blog, which I will provide links for at the very end, and the consensus is I'm not one to be a fan of the Bay directed films. The animated film from 1986 is amazing and I've enjoyed what I've seen from the original 80s cartoon and the more recent show Transformers Prime. Basically, anything outside of this film series I've come to enjoy and has me hooked to the Transformers lore because with these movies I don't feel I'm quite connected to what Transformers exactly is in the grand scheme of things. Like I said in my review of the animated film, the 3rd movie Dark of the Moon I thought was passable due to the fact that I felt it leaned closer to what I enjoyed about Transformers regarding the aspect of the Transformers themselves.
After viewing the atrocious fourth film Age of Extinction for the first time I'll admit I wasn't expecting greatness to be had with The Last Knight, but there was a little bit of hope for me going in that maybe this could be another decent entry like Dark of the Moon. Maybe they could expand on the mythos of the Transformers in ancient times and in that regard there would be a little more focus on the robots. Now after watching this movie in a theater with an audience of people I can finally say that I will NEVER have hope going into these movies because this movie is everything I hate about this franchise. Transformers The Last Knight was an absolute pain to sit through and was an experience that just needed to end.
Not gonna lie writing the plot summary for this movie was a bit of a challenge for me because the narrative structure of this movie felt so non-existent. I apologize if I have to repeat myself discussing this movie like I did similarly with Revenge of the Fallen and Age of Extinction because what these movies share in common is to have a series of events strung together that didn't feel connected to be a full length feature. I'm serious! Nothing felt important. Nothing because all this movie had to offer was just characters running around, traveling to different places, maybe fighting off some robots and when it was just the humans, which my word, was a large majority of the movie, they were just there to dribble exposition and bring about witty banter that WASN'T FUNNY! Hey Bay and writers! Stop forcing horrible comedy into these movies. It makes me want to vomit.
I have no doubt that this movie by the end of the year will be named one of the worst screenplays of the year. It just didn't feel like a movie in the sense that I was being told a story. Not to mention that when it opens there's all these emotional moments happening, but I can't feel for such events because there's no good writing behind these characters. There's none of that conflict to feel in what could be gripping action scenes. The action feels weightless because there aren't characters to feel for.
I mentioned that issue before in my retrospective, but it bears repeating because I've seen Michael Bay direct great action that involved conflict I could get into. The first Transformers didn't have great characters at all, but I was still into the aspect about the robot war that it made me invested in the action and found it to be directed well. Dark of the Moon had an outstanding action scene at the end because there was solid build up to such events. Here you're just seeing action play out, but there's no purpose and not really memorable direction behind it all.
This was the definition of a processed movie where the goal was just to make movie that has a nice sleek look to it with fancy CGI and action scenes that will get butts in seats to entertain audiences and just put a string of scenes together to make it a full length motion picture. Not to mention the length of this movie was just unbearable and there's not a single great moment, not a even a scene, a moment that makes the 2 HOUR AND 30 MINUTE RUNTIME worth the price of admission to see this movie. If you pay to see this movie this weekend and if you enjoyed said movie you paid for, it's your opinion, but I do not understand you.
What's so wrong with going into a film where you see larger than life characters in the Transformers where you can care about them and care about the stakes they're in? Who wants to see a movie that hearkens back to an atrocity like Revenge of the Fallen where it's a string of scenes and prolonged scenes of actors and even horrific robot characters that try to be funny? Like the previous films the robots are so sidelined and have paper thin writing that they become soulless characters, but even though that wasn't already poor there's still that abysmal focus on the human characters in a Transformers movie.
Mark Wahlberg's character was just there partnered with Laura Haddock's character, so they could make sexual innuendos. One scene Mark Wahlberg wanted to get in her pants because he sees her wearing a dress with cleavage and then a couple scenes following was her wanting to screw him after she saw his abs with the artifact sliding around his body. I mean people sat down in a room to write these horrific scenes as a movie to sell toys to children. CHILDREN!
You also may notice I keep calling it a movie rather than a film. Well that's because I can't even call what I watched a "film" since I consider movies as "films" when there's artistic effort involved and with this movie I didn't get that at all. Not even a little effort. All that being said, there were a few "moments" where I thought to myself that a few shots were well composed, but that doesn't negate the fact that the movie called for good visual storytelling, which is y'know, the point of any movie ever. Even bad movies that try to tell a story are still attempting to TELL A STORY. This movie was not accomplishing that whatsoever.
Were there some good effects and shots here and there? Sure, I won't deny that, but all I watched was a shameless attempt at creating a piece of visual storytelling. I mean people could argue, "Oh what do you expect from a movie that's about fighting robots?" Well considering there was a lack of that in the movie with prolonged scenes that didn't even focus on fighting robots period, the argument's a bit invalid. But I will say that as a fan of blockbuster movies I've seen effort and great stories and characters come out of those films and they ended up being some of my favorite films of all time. Do I love Star Wars just because of the lightsaber fights and spaceships shooting lasers at each other? Do I love Indiana Jones just because Indy can punch people? Do I love Mad Max Fury Road just for the car chases and big explosions? The answers to all those questions are gee I don't know-NO! THAT'S NOT WHY!
I love movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Mad Max, so I can wrap in a story that's immersive and has meaning and characters I can relate to as a human being and see grow throughout the story with these fabulous arcs. If I didn't love those movies for those reasons, I'd be missing the point about why I love movies and Transformers The Last Knight is everything a movie shouldn't be. I really hated watching this movie and everything that happened in it. Sure there were a few shots and visual effects that looked okay, but this was a horrific effort for being considered cinema and released in a theater for people to see.
Verdict: F
Despite a majority of my hatred I had to give it one little plus because there were some cool things to look at occasionally, but, again, practically the whole movie was a dumpster fire. I don't plan on seeing any more Transformers movies even though I do know Michael Bay is stepping down to direct after this film and swears by it, but he pretty much said the same thing after Dark of the Moon and look what happened there.
And if he does step down they're going to hire some other idiot director, probably the guy who directed one of the Ninja Turtles movies to direct it and it'll be just as horrible. I'm done with this franchise. Transformers: The Last Knight for me is titled "Transformers Good Night" because this will be my final farewell to this franchise. Unless I hear the Travis Knight directed Bumblebee is awesome I refuse to go to a theater and see any more of these movies.
DO NOT WATCH IT. DO NOT PAY TO SEE IT. Instead, go see Wonder Woman again, Guardians Vol 2 or even Alien Covenant if it's still hanging around. These are great movies that should be seen multiple times or, heck, stay in to spend time with your loved ones or watch the original 1986 classic The Transformers The Movie. I know this movie will make a lot of money, but to the people who read my blog I'm doing you a favor.
Stay tuned this weekend because in honor of Spider-Man: Homecoming I'll be releasing a 2 part retrospective of every Spider-Man movie starting out this weekend with the Sam Raimi directed Spider-Man Trilogy. For more updates follow me in the social media links below and if you haven't already check out my retrospective on the previous four Transformers movies as well as a review for The Transformers The Movie:
The Transformers The Movie - Movie Review
Transformers Series Retrospective
Twitter and Instagram: @alexjcorey
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my review. As always be sure to see some movies, except this one, and all that good stuff.
Take care. :-)
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my review. As always be sure to see some movies, except this one, and all that good stuff.
Take care. :-)
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