Transformers: The Last Knight

The fifth outing of the Transformers is more spectacular, more over-the-top, more daring and more bombastic than ever before. Screenwriting-wise, it's again a solid piece of crap, but for once it's taken it up another level and pulls the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin and Stonehenge into the Transformers mythology, making it feel at times like a rip-off of The Da Vinci Code, National Treasure and their ilk. I was amused by a couple of scenes with the immortal butler, whereas with Anthony Hopkins I wondered all along if he even needed a similar role. The minor role of the returning John Turturro was mostly unnecessary. Overall, it was an audiovisual orgy with no soul that too often wallowed in opacity. Besides, by the end I was sick of the repetitive "I am Optimus Prime!" and all the other delicious lines that abounded throughout the film. I also resented the rather untapped potential of Quintessa. (09/05/2019)

Absolutely unnecessarily overcomplicated trash and the worst Transformers ever. Seriously. I liked the previous film, but this is not so much a jump as a fall down, which is not saved even by the special effects or action and it’s nowhere near as good as any of the previous films. This time people do not matter to the screenwriters or the director at all, the storyline is a downright parody (but unfunny)... And on top of that, it's awfully long. It’s too bad, I was expecting to have fun. (06/30/2017)

Michael Bay goes on and on and on, and this fifth episode might give you the impression that you are watching the fourth or the third. The originality is gone, so is the scriptwriting inventiveness and, unfortunately, the initial charm and idea too. Wahlberg does his thing, and every episode has a hot chick in the mix – it's almost like a Bond tradition. One can't deny the visually pompous finale and the intended self-parody, but the intertwining of the story with the Knights of the Round Table, well, that was a bit too much, even by Hollywood standards. On top of that, the ending hints at one or two more episodes. God help us all. (09/17/2017)

151 minutes. Of that, some 60 minutes could go immediately. And cut the rest. And just leave the finale. And throw that out, too... The Fifth Transformers were a pain to watch. Michael Bay more or less does what you expect him to do, but otherwise it's a schizophrenic spectacle. At one point it feels like a kids' movie. then we get some big military sci-fi, followed by a teen comedy featuring Anthony Hopkins instead of Stiffler, and then there's some robot carnage for a while. Bayhem works properly. If it entertained you before, it will entertain you this time. Unfortunately Transformers loses on all other fronts. The characters fail to engage, the humour is hammy, the plot moves in weird jumps so that most of the time I had no idea what was happening on screen or whether Mark Wahlberg and Josh Duhamel were already buddies or still adversaries. And I really can't say that I remember anything positive from those two and a half hours. So, in the end, I was most impressed with the opening hour, which doesn't even try to pretend to have any purpose other than to introduce as many cute little robots as possible taking a toy store by storm. This cynical and pragmatic approach deserves respect. (08/16/2017)

Maybe it’s a bit more moderate and not as soul-destroying as the fourth film, but it’s still the worst film of the series, and of Bay's entire production line. Everything that ever made his films bad is multiplied here to monstrous proportions. The appearance is as polished as a Mercedes prototype and as voluptuous as the curves of Oxford doctor Laura Haddock. Every (and I mean every, as I realized after an hour) shot is over-stylized kitsch, which is also subordinated to the fact that if the protagonists are supposed to stand in the counter-shot of the falling sun, the sunset will last the whole day (check your watch during the finale). And somewhere beneath the surface of this twisted fetish is a plot that makes not a drop of sense. The series has never been brimming with deep intelligence, but it has always balanced it with a certain amount of craziness and lowbrow fun (Devastator's balls). Here, the plot goes nowhere for the first hour, and with the move to England, it loses the last vestiges of normal creative progression about building, development, continuity, and at least a drop of logic. Everything is absent, and even though Anthony Hopkins feels this is one big creative misstep, he nevertheless enjoys it with sloppy elegance. And that's it. Michael Bay is the last knight of cinematic ridiculousness. (09/29/2017)