Transformers: The Last Knight

• Directed by Michael Bay
• June 18, 2017 (Odeon Leicester Square) / June 21, 2017 (United States)
• Based on Hasbro’s Transformers toy line

The Autobots and Decepticons hunt for an Arthurian artifact that could decide the fate of the world.

In the world of bloated movies, Transformers: The Last Knight is probably the most bloated. While it has its moments, it also has an unnecessarily large cast and stretches out 90 minutes of story (maybe that much) into two and a half hours of loud explosions and contradictory nonsense that is both bad AND watchable. They do their best to stretch out very little.

This is yet another story where the Transformers did something/left something on Earth in the ancient past and are now trying to reclaim it to conquer the Earth or save Cybertron or whatever. They really should’ve had a logbook for all these things. If these films had been constructed more like G1 I could buy into this forgotten history a bit. It appears more and more the Transformers we have in the film have been around since the dawn of Cybertron so this memory lapse is a bit difficult to buy.

I give Bay and company credit for that opening scene involving Arthur and his knights. It is an especially effective and brutal medieval battle. What we normally get in film is much nicer than this. In reality Medieval battles were violent affairs with some very devastating weaponry. Much like today they knew how to kill back then. But that is not the main selling point.

Stanley Tucci returns to Transformers but this time as the wizard Merlin who seeks the help of the Knights of Iacon (Transformers) to defeat the Saxons. Anywho, the Knights of Iacon are a group of Transformers hiding on Earth in yet another important thing about this planet that those who should know do not. I did not expect his speech to have any emotional impact but it did. Admittedly it starts a little silly but quickly moves around to fine acting. That man is brilliant and highly underrated.

Mark Wahlberg returns as Cade Yeager as does his daughter but by voice only. Somehow she’s escaped the wrath of the US government yet he’s on the run. How that works I do not know. He seems to be hunted because of his activities in the last movie but she was right there by his side even if she was a forgettable character.

John Turturro as Seymour Simmons in a relatively unimportant part that could’ve been cut out to shorten this whole movie. Simmons is living in Cuba because the Cuban government is fine with Transformers parading around there. They never really say why Cuba gets by having a species hated and hunted by the world just being one of the people. 

Bumblebee makes a full transition to bad ass here. During World War II (and more secret history) he worked with a very brutal unit that fought the Nazis. It just makes him a tough in the past but his badassery does little in the present.

The story of The Last Knight goes further into the knight concept introduced in the last film. Apparently Optimus (Peter Cullen slumming it again) has not only forgotten that he was a Knight of Iacon but he was one of several Knights. And apparently all the other transformers have forgotten that an ancient weapon was taken from Cybertron and hidden on Earth. Do they write or record nothing? Admittedly the Cosmic Cube (all but forgotten here from Transformers) contained their entire planet’s history but did they rely on that as their sole source of information storage?

The story borders on being campy. It’s one goof and joke after another. And given how serious they portray what is going on, the humor is quite out of place. I give them props for having the Transformers and humans work side-by-side and both contributing relatively equally to the story. One does not completely overshadow the other. But that improvement is muted by the needless humor.

Unfortunately this movie is filled with far too many characters. The ones that don’t deserve it get too much time as compared to the ones who are interesting such as Chief Sherman (Gil Birmingham) or William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) who after skipping the last movie returns more sophisticated. Not mind-blowing but better.

As a story it’s some kind of weak mash up of The Transformers: The Movie and the multi-part episode The Ultimate Doom. And on that note it also rehashes a bit Revenge of the Fallen by yet again having Cybertron move into Earth’s orbit (this time under its own power) as part of a way to save it. So why did they need the space bridge in Revenge of the Fallen?

Quintessa (Gemma Chan) is apparently the one who created the Transformers. Why is not made clear but it looks like it was to fight Unicron who is also planet Earth. So the Transformers didn’t need energon to keep going or be born but rather these were all pointless instances? Did anybody think these movies through? Admittedly the Resident Evil films played fast and loose, but there was more thought given into what they did with those than what was done here. I guess they were saving that for a sequel.

Quintessa’s big plan is to revive Cybertron by draining the life energy from the Earth thus killing Unicron. And Prime seems to be quite aware of Unicron being an ancient enemy but has forgotten everything else-including that he was a knight! 

The Last Knight has some cool visuals, but cool visuals do not equal a great story. Between fighting robots and the whole Cybertron thing this is great to look at but when you think about the movie it’s just really dumb. Yet much like its predecessors it’s a great movie when you watch it but a very terrible film when you think about it after it’s over. It manages to be both at different points depending on your observational state.

This has a big budget to it but has all the thought and complexity of a children’s cartoon written by children’s writers. The Transformers: The Movie did far more with far less. And yet the thing being they were not largely children’s writers behind it. Within the confines of the rules of the era they made some very intelligent episodes for what they were. They had a little more substance than what we got here. This is extremely superficial and simplistic. 

Peter Cullen’s badass Optimus Prime just gets more laughable because he tries to be tougher and harder than everybody else. Being steeped in G1, I just can’t view Optimus Prime as this violent super tough dude threatening to kill his enemy. At least not so bluntly as “I’m going to kill you!” More importantly I’m not sure what qualities he has that inspires others to follow him. He’s not a great leader nor an individual that comes off as extremely caring. He’s just the angriest individual when it comes to the Decepticons. 

Transformers: The Last Knight should not be good when you watch it but it is. It only gets terrible when you think about it and unfortunately you will think about it because we all think about movies after we watch them. I can’t recommend this one, but if you happen to watch it be warned. You may watch it again and get trapped in a masochistic loop.