Say what you will about Michael Bay as a director and storyteller, he has proven to put some very competently made movies, one’s that deliver what the target audience wants for the most part. Bad Boys, Armageddon, 13 Hours, and arguably his best film, The Rock, are all movies under his belt that are fun action flicks. Heck, even the first Transformers movie he directed back in 2007 was the perfect fit for his directing style. However, the Michael Bay Transformers franchise really started to go off the proverbial with Revenge of the Fallen, which is still to this day the most successful Transformers movie, domestically speaking. Dark of the Moon, while an improvement from its predecessor, still felt like more of the same nonsense that Revenge of the Fallen had. Transformers: Age of Extinction was a way for Paramount to softly reboot the franchise by adding new actors other characters, and it still never worked in its favor, due to how painful and awful that movie is.
Transformers: The Last Knight completely redefines the words horrible and awful. Where we all thought Age of Extinction was the worst Transformers movie, Transformers: The Last Knight makes Age of Extinction look like an instant classic. There is no movie over the last 5 years that is more morally offensive or more lazily produced that Transformers: The Last Knight, a movie that makes you dizzy, sick to your stomach and makes you want to curl up in a blanket, while sitting in a bathtub contemplating your life and what it means.
Humans are at war with the Transformers, and Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving the future lies buried in the secrets of the past and the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Now, it’s up to the unlikely alliance of inventor Cade Yeager, Bumblebee, an English lord and an Oxford professor to save the world.
The problem with the Transformers movies is that it’s hard to not see the true potential that these movies could have been. The first one happens to be most critically favored because it never lost focus and it never felt like it was trying to do so many things all at once. It was simple, fun and adventurous, with Bay’s style blending in seamlessly. Also, it’s worth mentioning that the Transformers movies aren’t going for an Oscar win anytime soon. They’re looked at as dumb and fun movies that you can turn your brain off and to simply enjoy the ride. No argument there, and if one doesn’t go in to one of these Transformers movies with that kind of mindset, then you should be set. However, with all that said, the last four Transformers movies, particularly The Last Knight, forget that sense of having fun and give you empty spectacle and characters that are even remotely memorable.
Transformers: The Last Knight is the case study of a studio that puts out a huge tentpole movie, that doesn’t have any passion, charm or even heart in its narrative or characters. Arguably, the best part of all five of these movies has been Optimus Prime. He’s the most popular and coolest Transformer and the design of him is also quite impressive. He’s hardly in this movie and what makes it even more disappointing is that he shows up in the beginning of the movie and doesn’t show up until the finale of the movie, which was a two and a half hour struggle to get through. So, when he disappears you’re sadly left with poorly developed characters, and what’s worst is that the movie, once more, focuses on the humans and not the actual Transformers. At least in something like Pacific Rim actually focuses on giant monsters and giant robots fight it out.
One thing that Michael Bay is known to do is he knows how to deliver some dazzling special effects and action set pieces. Transformers: The Last Knight does have several solid visuals, but the problem that is that all the action and visuals don’t serve any narrative purpose, thereby making it just visual noise. The action sequences in Transformers: The Last Knight are so bloated and ghastly and what made it worse is the Michael Bay shot it in IMAX cameras and IMAX 3D cameras and the format of the movie would change so sporadically that it physically makes you sick to your stomach. Bay can be steady in good doses, but in the case for Transformers: The Last Knight, there was not one ounce of passion or thought that when for setting up action scenes that should have been awe-inspiring that end up being absolutely dreadful.
Mark Wahlberg is a great and respected Oscar nominated actor. He may be a better addition than Shia LaBeouf, to a degree, but just like in Age of Extinction, the character of Cade Yeager isn’t given anything to because his character is nonsensical to the events of this movie, as are the rest of the characters. Having Josh Duhamel and John Turturro show up as Col. William Lennox and Seymour Simmons , who were both in the first three movies, felt like an after thought and were attempts of the studio brining back familiar faces in hopes that people would drive back to see the fifth installment. Bringing back these characters felt so unearned and thoughtless because none of them contributed anything new or fresh to the table.
Transformers: The Last Knight is a cacophonous experience. From the narrative, the characters and world building, every aspect of this movie was thinly developed, but at the same time, it’s basically what one might expect from Transformers movie that’s, once again, directed by Michael Bay, but it ended up being so much worse than it actually was. It’s important to know there are movies that are made for just entertainment, but to be entertained you at least have to have some form of attachment to some element and Transformers: The Last Knight doesn’t meet that level at all. This is a horrendous and piece of trash. Thanks, Bay. At least we got Bumblebee.
My grade for Transformers: The Last Knight: F
Zane's take at the Cinema's 