So, here we are again, reviewing the newest smash ‘em up
fest by Michael Bay (ARMAGEDDON,
1998, THE ISLAND, 2005) within
Hasbro’s Transformer movie franchise: TRANSFORMERS:
THE LAST KNIGHT (2017). If I sound a little angst-ridden here, it’s simply
because, for the third time in a row, I have to review the newest smash ‘em up
fest by Michael Bay within Hasbro’s Transformer toy movie franchise.
One might assume this is going to be a biased, negative
review, but I honestly went in with an open mind – negative expectations, true,
but an open mind. Even so, I have to be honest and say this movie was a bit of
a train wreck. You could probably stop reading now, but there were also some
good aspects. Quite good, in fact. But the overall feeling as I walked out of
the theater was that this was two hours and twenty-eight minutes of unmitigated
chaos, and not in a good way like the FAST
& FURIOUS films (pick a year).
The premise was interesting for a Transformers film,
considering what our metal(ish) heroes have gone through in their previous
outings: there is a direct connection throughout history between the legendary King
Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. There is a clarifying revelation to all
of this towards the end, but I promise I’m not giving anything away here, since
the film opens during a one-sided battle circa 500 AD (“AD” fits better when
talking about King Arthur than the modern abbreviation CE, so stop whining)
between Arthur and his army of Britons and the overwhelmingly large and brutal Saxon
army. Everyone wants to retreat but the king promises the magician Merlin will
arrive soon to help. Once uttering the movie’s tag line (something to the
effect of “There comes a moment when we are called upon to make a difference”)
they rally behind Arthur and head for their slaughter. In the meantime, a
drunken Merlin approaches a crashed, hidden spaceship and begs a large humanoid
creature (its features are not completely revealed) for help. He admits his
“magic” is really whatever assistance these beings have given him using their
advanced technology, but this is the end of the world and they must save
civilization. When the alien shouts “Transformers Assemble” (a cross between their
usual battle cry and the Avengers’), a bunch of transformers exit the ship,
reassemble into a single dragon and save the world (at least for the Britons).
The devastation on the battle field fades into the
devastation of Chicago, along with the words “1600 Years Later.” I thought that
was clever.
No, I did not just insult Chicago.
Two films ago, in TRANSFORMERS:
DARK OF THE MOON (2011), Chicago was laid waster during the climactic
battle between the good Transformers (called Autobots) and the bad ones (called
Decepticons). A voiceover gives the audience a quick summary of the past few
films to catch us up, though there’s a lot of ground to cover and I wasn’t sure
I followed all of it. In short: The Autobots came to Earth ages ago after their
world was laid waste, and are marooned here. Decepticons arrived in more modern
times and an age-old battle ensued. Humans, tired of being nothing but ants
under the monstrous robot(ish) creatures’ war, fought back, eventually fighting
alongside
the Autobots. Until they decided even the Autobots (led by the silver-tongued
Optimus Prime) were a threat and began hunting them down and destroying them.
The Autobots had an ally in Sam Witwicky until the actor got weird and the
producers replaced him in the previous movie (TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION, 2014) with Mark Wahlberg.
Wahlberg, if you read my review of said film, was a positive addition to the
franchise. He plays Cade Yeager (can’t get a more American name than that!) a
single father who, after the last film is now a fugitive from justice, helping
to hide the surviving Autobots from capture or, worse, death. End of recap. Cade
makes his dramatic, if not confusing, entrance in a devastated Chicago at this
point.
But I wish to digress for a moment. Because I have some
questions – as I always do when watching a Transformers movie, about these
creatures.
Why does this guy always review the Transformer’s movies? He obviously
doesn’t get them. In fact, I think he’s a little hostile towards the whole
franchise.
I know, but I heard that no one else wanted to see the film, and he’ll
use any excuse to go to the movies and eat crappy food for two hours.
How can you possibly know that?
…wait, wait, he’s typing again.
So I ask these questions every few years, but never get an
answer. They bleed green motor oil. They can die. They can come apart and
reassemble into cars or trucks. But they’re alive. And early in this newest film
the dinosaur Transformers from last time are now under the protection of Yeager
and have, apparently, bred since there are a bunch of baby dinosaur
Transformers running around learning how to breath fire. And they’re growing.
How? What do they eat? Their Mom, or Aunt, eats a police car but throws it up…
so what exactly do they -
Hey, buddy! They’re toys. Get off your high horse and review the film,
you moron.
But these are legitimate questions we all should be asking -
They… are… toys, now stop it! Bay is working with this lone limitation,
the nature and “physiology” of the Transformers based on the toys and the
wildly successful cartoon series (and comics). He can do whatever the heck else
he wants in these films – and does – but he does not
touch this one, sacred cow: the Transformers themselves.
Hmm. OK, I’ll buy that.
Now do your job and review the film!
The post-prologue scene is often hard to follow or overly long
filler scenes to reintroduce the characters, many times using unsuccessful
humor. There is some very good humor in this movie, but it
comes primarily from two characters we’ll get to in a moment.
Let’s just do a Cliff Notes version of the early plot
summary so we can get to what worked and didn’t. Cade and the TV-talking Transformer Bumblebee
save a group of kids from being blown up then arrested (in that order) in
Chicago, now a containment zone for the military and their Transformer
butt-kicking special forces, the TRF, trying to control the spread of
Transformers through the country and world. As the years pass, more
Transformers arrive on Earth, but no one can explain why. The TRF blow them up as
soon as they land. Cade meets one such alien before he dies, a Transformer who
looks like a Knight who gives him a special amulet which he will need to find
the Staff of Merlin. More on that in a moment (it’s the key to the whole film
and also the lynch pin which sends it crashing into the sea, plot-wise). Cade
escapes with a young orphaned girl and his Transformer friends, to a massive
junk yard where they are all hiding.
Meanwhile, the Autobots’ leader, Optimus Prime, has been
drifting through space trying to find their home, and their creators (they have
forgotten this over the eons, something like that). He finds it – a
planet-sized ship (well, a ship/planet hybrid) called Cybertron. The
Transformers home world is mostly dead, however. Ironically, Cybertron is
heading to Earth and will arrive in three days. So he pretty much drifted
around the cosmos for nothing. The plan: get the Staff of Merlin and use it to
destroy the Earth by sucking its energy dry, thus restoring Cybertron to its
original, glorious state. This plan is being carried out by an evil, liquid
metal woman named Quintessa (Gemma Chan, FANTASTIC
BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM, 2016) who captures Optimus Prime,
brainwashes him into joining her evil minions then renames him Nemesis Prime.
Quintessa, according to the Internet, is of the race which built the
Transformers as slaves, until the Transformers rebelled and gained their
freedom. Optimus, now Nemesis, is serving her kind again.
That’s the last we see of Optimus for about an
hour and a half. He returns near the end, but mostly just to give some misplaced
speeches. His role in this film is vastly diminished from the previous ones. I
guess there isn’t enough room in two hours and twenty-eight minutes to develop many
characters deeper than surface level.
The army, after interrogating the imprisoned arch
enemy of Optimus Prime, Megatron, learns that Cade’s amulet (which has
attached itself to him) is the key to finding the Staff, though we never learn
how Megatron knows this. The army wants the staff, because the bad robot convinces
them it’s the key to stopping the approaching monster planet-ship and whatever
evil-do it is planning.
It should be noted, so you don’t get your hopes up, the
thingy attached to Cade is never used to find the staff– the writers forgot
this point later on. The army and TRF reluctantly team up with the
Decepticons to capture or kill Yeager and get the magic thingy, in return for
their freedom (which makes no sense since the last time the Decepticons roamed
free they tried to take over the world).
They track Yeager to the junk yard and a battle
royale ensues. The second of the film with more to come.
OK, enough plot summary. It only gets weirder (but at times
entertaining) from there.
Speaking of “royale,” the best part of TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT is Sir Edmund Burton, played with
gleeful delight by veteran actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, and his C3PO-like
Transformer butler Cogman (voiced with even more gleeful delight by Jim
Carter, the man we all know and love as head butler Carson from the DOWNTON ABBY TV series). Cogman’s
constant, proper—but-seething-British banter with Burton and Yeager was
reminiscent of Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO in ROGUE
ONE (2016). Unlike some of the other, major humor fails, especially with
Cade’s business associate Jimmy (Jerrod Carmichael) who spends most of his time
screaming about getting arrested while machine guns and evil robots are
literally trying to kill, not arrest, him, any scene with Carter’s Cogman - the
Transformer butler with anger issues - is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise
suffocating film. As is every scene with Hopkins, whose calm demeanor only
slightly masks the absolute joy he emanates at playing this crazy, fun role.
There, you see? This guy’s one of those stuck up reviewers. “Oh, I did
not like the robots or the Americans but give me SIR
Anthony Hopkins and anyone from a PBS show and things are OK. Oh, oh, where is
my tea?” What a wuss.
They’re Transformers, not robots.
I know that! Apparently he doesn’t.
The cast, especially the voices of the Autobots, are a Who’s
Who of popular actors, from John Goodman, Ken Watanabe and Steve
Buscemi. Even Mitch Pileggi (THE X-FILES
TV series) is in there as a TRF honcho.
Everyone in the cast is having fun, and if I had to guess,
so is Michael Bay. As the story moves from the United States to the United
Kingdom, it’s as if someone dared Bay to ramp it up as far as he could to see
what will happen. We have Stonehenge, submarines, the Knights of the Round
table, sword fights (sort of), chases through London and battles underwater, a
Transformer home world scraping the Earth to death, a beautiful woman who is apparently
the key to saving humanity and Mark Wahlberg’s abs. Name it, Bay threw it in
there. There was a point, somewhere around the submarine scene, where I
actually laughed out loud. Things were getting so insane plot-wise, I found
myself caught up in the whole thing. I almost – almost – was enjoying it,
mostly because it was just so outlandish I gave up and let go of logic enough
to enjoy the ride as much as possible.
Which, I guess, is really the point.
Is he coming around?
Shh….
Aside from the British actors who truly made the film bearable,
there were other positive points. I mentioned that Mark Wahlberg has been a
good addition to the franchise. He plays his parts straight, with such a
passionate innocence you simply have to like his characters.
As well, the special effects were out of this world. No pun
intended. One thing these Transformer movies have going for them, their visual effects
are top notch. The interplay between CGI Transformers and the real world around
them, especially the actors, is seamless (aside from the fact the humans should
be suffering a lot more injuries than they do). There was a short but enjoyable
car chase through London which had to be mostly CGI, otherwise it
was either shot in the streets of London or a heck of a big sound stage. You
couldn’t tell. Visually, A+.
Overall, as I’ve said, watching this film is unbound chaos.
The climactic battle scene (ok, there were about four of them) was so crowded
and confusing I had a hard time following what was going on. Let me be clear: visually,
it was easy to follow, but there is a story here, somewhere, and
motivations and actions of the characters have to move logically forward.
Honestly, while the characters at the end are floating miles above the Earth in
a last ditch attempt to save humanity, I was not sure what was supposed to actually
happen
for Earth to be saved. I just waited to see what unfolded. When the music died
down and things settled a bit, maybe I’d know. In the meantime, I tried to follow
the plot as best I could.
The staff, which everyone was fighting for, was kind of
important, but only as a key. And Cade Yeager’s special device which everyone
was originally trying to get did nothing to find it. The staff was found via another
plot point I won’t reveal, except to say it was part of the British storyline
so it was decently done.
A lot of loose threads were left dangling miles above the
Earth with our heroes. If you don’t spend much effort trying to tie them
together in your brain, you’ll make it through mostly unscathed.
Anything else good, in this “stuck-up reviewer’s” mind?
See? He heard you!
Nope. The theater was pretty packed, and as soon as it was
obvious the climax was winding down, but before the credits rolled, a dozen or
so people got up to leave. As if they told themselves since they’d stuck it out
this long, they’d stay to see the resolution but once that goal was reached,
they left. Or maybe they simply had to pee, it was a two and a half hour
movie after all.
I’m going out on a limb here, but after having reviewed most
of the other movies in this franchise: I don’t think diehard Transformer fans
will find this movie to be all that good, or at least not as good as the previous
four films. An ambitious try, it was, at building the franchise’s world a
little deeper, and introducing some possible sequel fodder. In doing so,
however, TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT
ended up with a story far too disjointed and scattered.
As for me, it was an adventure, I’ll give you that. There
was good and bad to the movie, but as far as coherent story and undangled plot
threads, it was mostly bad. If you’re a fan, I’d be curious what you’d rate it.
Only because Anthony Hopkins and Jim Carter added a humorous
touch of class to the whole thing, I’ll be nice and give it One
and a Half knights… I mean knives.