This is not the worst Transformers film. Marky Mark’s squawking isn’t quite as annoying as Shia LaBeouf’s, the female characters aren’t ogled as lecherously as in previous films and the racial caricatures are dialed back somewhat too. But The Last Knight is a strong contender for the most nonsensical of all of Michael Bay’s nonsensical robot alien movies, and is probably also the most boring.
It’s wildly overstuffed, but the basics are Merlin’s staff and King Arthur’s medallion are needed to stop the god of Cybertron from getting that planet to eat Earth and wipe out all life on it. Then there’s several superfluous subplots involving countless unnecessary characters, all adding up to a punishing two and a half hours.
It’s a special sort of hate I have for these films. All of them. The first one sucked, I don’t care who says it didn’t. They’re so aggressively obnoxious; not works of low quality but works of anti-quality. Of the sequels, I vaguely remember a climactic fight on the Pyramids and another in a falling building. I shan’t remember The Last Knight‘s, even though it’s the most bearable part of the whole ghastly experience. It seems to start at Stonehenge then jumps to some huge submarine alien structure, before jumping again to Cybertron… I think. I honestly can’t be sure what planet the end of the film takes place on.
There’s one sequence in that climactic battle that probably lasts less than a minute showing Optimus Prime wasting some baddies with his sword. It looks pretty sweet. It’s the one brief moment of enjoyable action in this entire mess, which has barely a trace of any wit, charm or fun of any sort. And yet, it’ll make millions upon millions. Cool world.
‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Movie Times | Also in 3D
