” It has been said throughout the ages, that there can be no victory, without sacrifice.”
Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, Peter Cullen
Synopsis: Transformers transform. Things get blown up. Alien artifacts are squabbled over.
The Last Knight: Where the series’ hero Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) becomes a passenger in his own franchise.
And not only is he missing in action for the most part, but when he does manage to muscle himself into the mayhem, he spends two-thirds of his screen time being a total liability, enchanted by the sorceress Quintessa (Gemma Chan) on his destroyed home planet of Cybertron.
With him out of the game, we’re left chasing around after the grating Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) and Laura Jane Haddock’s horribly clichéd, polo playing, super-English Oxford professor Viviane Wembly (and a host of interchangeable Autobots), as they themselves hunt down Merlin’s Staff, a powerful tool that everyone is after, because reasons. The old Transformers MacGuffin – these films just wouldn’t be complete without one!
It is, of course, completely nonsensical from start to finish, boiling down to little more than a chain of dizzyingly unfocused action set pieces, a “heartwarming” scene between Optimus Prime and his second in command Bumblebee that should have amounted to something more meaningful, and yet ends up bringing back memories of Batman v Superman’s infamous “Martha!” moment, and Sir Anthony Hopkins uttering the words “dude” and “bitchin'”.
So loud, so long, so ridiculous.
I’ve seen four of these movies at the cinema now. I fell asleep in one of them (Transformers: The One With The Racist Autobots), and quite happily could have done so in this one too. It’s baffling to me how such an in your face movie can be so spectacularly dull, but alas, it really, really is.
Rating (out of 5):
Flicks and Pieces 