Transformers: The Last Knight

Guess what everyone? I came back today from seeing the new Transformers movie, which came out last week, "Transformers: The Last Knight." Do you want to know how it is? Well, here it goes: 

Alan Jones started his review out by saying, "Phew, I think I need to lie down! It begins in the Dark Ages with hints of Monty Python and the Holy Grail and ends up at the Stonehenge monument in an "Oh, so that’s why it was built there?" flash of enlightenment." 

Jones goes on to say, "In between, Michael Bay, helming his fifth and supposedly final Transformers movie (who shouted "hooray"?), takes you into outer space, back in time to Nazi Germany, outside 10 Downing Street, into every far-flung corner of the globe for another super-sized slice of incomprehensible action and deep down into an ocean abyss to solve the convoluted mystery that lies at the heart of this quite overwhelming spectacle. Nothing seems to have changed in that mind-numbing aspect endemic to this franchise." 

Bay leaves no stone unturned as he finishes the franchise (unless he decides to return to direct another Transformers movie) basically crushing the viewer into dizzying submission. 

I guess it's debatable whether this or "Age of Extinction" is the worst in the series, but the first is still the best, but it definitely has the plot that has so much jammed into it that it's hard to keep track of. 

You will thank Anthony Hopkins who comes in at just the right time to explain everything – somewhat – so the audience can relax into another stretched out finale of mindless robotic action that is complete and total pandemonium. 

The basic jest (which the scriptwriters failed at) Optimus Prime, reprised by Peter Cullen, has gone back to Cybertron, the Transformers home planet. He gets manipulated into becoming Nemesis Prime by Quintessa (Gemma Chan) and ordered to go back to Earth and retrieve Merlin's staff that was buried by Merlin himself (Stanley Tucci). 

You heard right: Merlin was real, as was King Arthur – his round table was an extraterrestrial metal plate – and the Transformers have did their role in every huge and epic disaster in human history. 

Why? Because Earth is actually the evil space enemy Unicron in disguise, ready to kill humans and turn the planet into the Transformers' peaceful slumber when Cybertron eventually dies off. 

That is currently going on, and the Transformers' new ally, inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Whalberg), is chosen to be the Last Knight needed to help Oxford University Professor Vivian Webley (Laura Haddock), Merlin's descendant, find Merlin's staff before evil Transformer Megatron (Frank Welker) and his team of Decepticons do. 

Hopkins' character, Sir Edmund Burton, is the watcher of the Transformers family tree and the one who brings Cade and Vivian together and gives them the task on how to save Earth from becoming Unicron. 

This is exactly what returning Agent Simmons (John Turturro) is doing in Cuba or homeless teen Izabella (Isabela Moner) and her robot sidekick Sqweeks (Reno Wilson) have to do with all of this catastrophe is beyond what you can say. 

The right answer is that what is needed is unnecessary but with all of these different plot threads – you'll easily miss Mitch Pileggi from "X-Files" as a Transformers Reaction Force group leader – you can't focus on one little detail for a second as this "The Fast and the Furious" action goes by quickly. 

When he's on screen and evidently has a fun time – with lines like "What a rockin' car she is!" - Hopkins also brings, as Jones says, "a much-needed aristocratic gravitas to the scattershot logic." 

Jones goes on to say, "And while the pairing of Whalberg’s rough-and-ready hero with posh fish-out-of-water English Rose Haddock must have looked good on paper, they generate zero chemistry together, and the much hinted at post-credits romance feels a non-starter." 

Hands down the most amusing and funny character in the head-banging mess is Sir Edmund's robot butler, Cogman, voiced by Jim Carter. Jones describes him as a "C3PO’d "headmaster" (a Transformer fused with organic life, do keep up!) with anger-management issues is virtually the actor’s Carson character from Downtown Abbey in sleek Aston Martin disguise." 

Someone somewhere knows how to loosen things up, and Cogman playing background music at a church scene is the one joke that works in the repetition of comic reliefs that don't work – like Cade's friend Jimmy, played by Jerrod Carmichael. 

Seeing how no one goes to see a Transformers movie thinking there will be a story must have been the main problem this entire time. 

The technically overwhelming, grandiose set-piece ramble continues in Bay's overdrive style where he doesn't look like he's directing as much as assembling cinematic maneuvers. 

Jones said, "A pyrotechnic display from Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl) kicks off the action in high style and the frenetic hyperkinesis continues relentlessly through junkyard wipe-outs, frantic driverless car chases, drone-hopping acrobatics, titanic underwater odysseys, extravagant Autobot face-offs and abstract, Escher-type dimensional battles." 

Jones goes on to say, "Add bodies exploding everywhere in artful slow-motion and the painterly sight of horn-shaped intergalactic spacecraft jutting through the Namibian and Jordanian deserts and you still won’t have a clue about how completely over-the-top this movie is." 

"The Last Knight" is way too much, yet not anywhere close to enough to say it's fun entertainment in anyone's blockbuster wordlist. It may not be easy to watch, but the awesome visual looks will keep you in your seat. 

As I have stated before, it's better than "Age of Extinction," since it's nearly not as long, but it may be worst in the sense that there isn't much focus on Optimus or Megatron, the action goes on way too long, there are boring scenes in here, and the human characters just aren't that interesting. However, I thought it wasn't really that bad. I might have liked this over "Age of Extinction," but I still don't think it's a good movie in any way. None of the "Transformers" movies are good, but I still enjoy the action for some time before I start getting bored by it. Hopefully this is the last movie that Michael Bay directs, but if he comes back, I won't be surprised. I would say wait for this to come out on Blu-Ray to rent, but if you want to go to the theater, then that's fine. 

Thank you for joining in on my review, stay tuned Friday for the finale of "Dirty Harry Month."