A film primarily about good robots fighting naughty robots has no business being two hours and twenty-eight minutes long. Worse, Transformers: The Last Knight is so convoluted and drawn-out that it feels like double that amount of time has passed.
Just like the rest of the series, Michael Bay’s fifth Transformers film sees the Autobots (good) fight the Decepticons (naughty) for little more reason than that’s simply what they do. And, just like the rest, it tries to crowbar Transformers lore into human history and legends, almost to the point where it seems like Earth belongs more to these big old cars with faces than to us.
This time around it’s King Arthur and the Crusades, where we see that Merlin (played by a particularly silly Stanley Tucci) was given a magic staff by a Transformer, and that staff is now the key to saving the Transformers’ home planet of Cybertron.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because that same idea is literally what happens in almost every single Transformers movie to date. In the first film it was a dusty pair of glasses that held the key to saving Cybertron and now it’s a big stick. It was a flimsy excuse for a plot then, and it’s tired and flimsy now.
Mark Wahlberg is back as Cade Yeager and spends the entire film looking totally confused by every situation he’s presented with. He’s helped by Laura Haddock’s Oxford University professor Vivian Wembley, who adds a more badass air of smarts to the Transformers movies’ leading lady mould.
Oscar-winning actor and actual British Knight Anthony Hopkins playing as historian and astronomer Sir Edmund Burton is disappointing as well. It’s hard to see such an accomplished actor blurt out the unfunniest lines and the whole scenario is just depressing.
One of the main issues with the characters in Transformers: The Last Knight is that they don’t just act the way they’re feeling, they announce almost every single mood they have out loud despite it being blatantly obvious.
It’s as though Bay doesn’t trust his audience enough to let them work out even the most obvious things for themselves - ironic given the film’s obscene length.
There’s also no end to the befuddling amount of robots. Some have got celebrity voices - Steve Buscemi, Omar Sy, and John Goodman all bang out metallic quips - but the action moves at such an intense pace that it’s hard to distinguish bot from bot.
Where Bay does impress though is his massive set pieces involving the humans. One particularly exciting action sequence involves Wahlberg running up a fallen space station which is being attacked not only by Decepticons but by giant tidal waves too. This occurs way too far into the film though after you’ve spent more than two hours following these characters around the globe. The same goes for the much-teased fight between Bumblebee and Optimus Prime and what should have been an iconic showdown just leaves you hoping for a quick resolution between these warring friends.
THE VERDICT
Michael Bay has now been making Transformers films for more than ten years. In that time, the series has moved on very little and The Last Knight is the loudest and most explosively dull instalment yet. A recycled plot told through an overly on-the-nose script, read by a confusing parade of characters, and muddled action scenes does nothing to justify its epic length.
Transformers: The Last Knight is the worst movie in what is frankly one of the laziest movie franchises ever. Hopefully this is the end.
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