Transformers: The Last Knight: Does It Have The Touch?

I have a confession: I must be one of the only people on the planet that loves the Transformers movies.  I'll never forget watching the first one and seeing Optimus Prime transform for the first time.  All the little gears shifting and fitting into place, and finally seeing a 40 foot tall bad-ass just staring down.  Critics don't have the same opinion as I do.  In fact they hate these films with a passion, with the exception of the first one.  They despise the way Michael Bay makes them, with the emphasis being on explosions and actions as opposed to following a story.  I just see this franchise as something to watch when you want to have fun and feel like a little kid again.  With that out of the way, lets dive into it.

Transformers: The Last Knight is the fifth film in the Transformers saga.  It is directed by Michael Bay and stars Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins (yes, you read that correctly), Josh Duhamel, and Laura Haddock.  Optimus Prime is gone and humans are left to deal with hundreds of Transformers.  The fate of our planet lies on the shoulders of an unusual alliance: Cade Yeager (Wahlberg), Bumblebee, an English lord (Hopkins), and a history professor (Haddock).  This movie is intended to kick off the Transformers Cinematic Universe, which would have prequels, spin-off films, and a multi-part sequel. I gotta level with you guys, I usually tend to disagree with the critics, but this movie is pretty disappointing.  For every scene I like, there was something that genuinely ticked me off.  Oh, and a word of caution, this review is going to be VERY nerdy.

Let's start with what's good about this movie, which there is quite a bit of.  I had the pleasure of seeing The Last Knight in IMAX, and my God did it look good.  The particles of dirt flew out of the screen, alien gunfire sprayed the audience, and Optimus Prime's sword swung over our heads.  Apparently 98% of the movie was filmed with IMAX cameras.  One thing everyone agrees on about the Transformers movies is that the visual effects are great.  It's no different here.  The level of detail that goes into creating these gigantic machines and action sequences blows me away.  One scene in particular exemplifies this perfectly (it was shown in the commercials, so don't start with me about spoilers).  Bumblebee gets attacked by soldiers and ends up getting blown apart.  A few seconds later, the pieces start clanking together to reassemble, kind of like an Iron Man suit.  The whole sequence is about two minutes and every second is spent showing how all these parts fit back together again.  Speaking of Bumblebee, he (like always) was awesome.  He's just so cool and steals every scene he's in.  The performances, for the most part, were pretty solid.  One would think Anthony Hopkins took this role just for a paycheck, but it appears that every time he is in a scene he is having a ball with it.  The action sequences, as usual in a Michael Bay movie, are very impressive.  They're big, loud, and full of explosions. There are also quite a lot of nods to previous iterations of Transformers that I think fans will enjoy.  The mythology was also pretty interesting and I look forward to seeing where it goes in future installments.  Now let's move onto the bad. This will be fun.

 Did you ever work on a project for school and you end up just mashing things together in hopes that it would work.  That's kind of what's happening here.  As I was watching, I couldn't help but feel like several parts in the movie were ideas for spin-off films.  The most important one, what the hell happened to Optimus, is barely touched upon.  In fact t Prime only appears for about 10 minutes of the two and a half-hour movie.  The whole Optimus and Bumblebee fight that has been at the forefront of the marketing campaign? Well that's about two minutes and it was all shown in the TV spots and trailers, which there was way too many of.  It also ended just as badly as the fight in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.  There was so much wasted potential, too. In the previous film, there were this Transformers called the Dinobots, which transformed into dinosaurs. Pretty sweet right? Well, like Optimus in this outing, they were in the last movie for about 10 minutes.  In this one, even less so!  You have a robot that could turn into a FIRE-BREATHING T-REX and you're just going to have him show up for five minutes?  Let's talk about the action.  Yes, it is cool. Yes, it sounds great, but it is by far the weakest in the Transformers series.  Pretty short too.  The beginning of the fight was cool.  I called it the Transformers D-Day scene because our heroes land and just cannot get past the Decepticon's firepower.  The scene goes on, however, and I became disappointed.  Oh and there's like no continuity to the previous films either.  In the third one Megatron gets his head ripped off by Optimus.  There's no need to check for a pulse, he's obviously dead.  Last movie, he gets reincarnated into a new body named Galvatron.  Now in this movie he's back to being Megatron.  Did I miss something?  That isn't just something you brush off.  This is one of the many instances of that happening. 

These next flaws deserves their own paragraph. About 80% of the time kid actors are in movies, they suck.  Unless you're Spielberg, it's just not going to work.  This film is no exception.  There is a character named Izabella who is played by Isabella Moner.  I won't sugar-coat it: Every time her character was on the screen, I wanted to throw myself down the stairs.  She has starred in several Nickelodeon productions so I shouldn't be so surprised.  Her character also has a little Transformer sidekick named Squeeks.  His sole purpose in the movie is to just sell toys. Think of a BB-8 but without any of the charm or cuteness. Moner's character and Squeeks literally have no purpose to the story.  If it just completely took them out of the final cut, nothing would be different.  Another thing that doesn't work is the humor, for the most part.  When Bumblebee tries to do a joke, it's pretty funny.  When Jerrod Carmichael tries, eh not so much.  Like Moner, if his character was taken out of the movie, nothing would be different.

To sum my mental breakdown up, Transformers: The Last Knight was an ok movie.  It's always great to hear Peter Cullen back as Optimus Prime. Fun fact, did you know he has voiced Prime since the 80s cartoon? The same goes for Frank Welker, who voiced Megatron.  There are certain scenes that are awesome, but other things just face-planted.  The visuals and sound effects were amazing.  There are a lot of little things diehard fans will catch.  Some performances were really good.  However, the movie is oddly edited, with certain scenes feeling like they were cut out of the final product.  I heard a rumor that about 40 minutes of footage was cut.  If this is the case, I hope there is an ultimate edition released on Blu-Ray that has these sequences.  The kid actors are horrendous, and the action, while it is very good, is a low for the series.  Attempts at humor were mostly misfires.  That being said, I am still a fan of the franchise and I'm excited to see where this series goes under the guidance of different directors, this being Michael Bay's last one ( so he claims).  Also there is a mid-credits scene you might want to stick around for.  If I were to rate it, I would give Transformers: The Last Knight a 5.5/10.