(SPOILER WARNING!!)
It's no secret to a lot of my friends and family that I am probably the only person on the planet who will openly admit to liking Michael Bay's Transformers movies. They were my introductory point to the greater franchise and I likely wouldn't have become as invested in movies and general fiction as I have over the last 10 years. I still spend an absurd amount of money on buying the latest toys and each time a movie comes out I am guaranteed to watch it.
Granted, I will openly admit that these movies technically aren't very good, and I also understand where most people are coming from when they say they don't like or watch these movies. They are basically just made as a means for Hasbro to make more money by appealing primarily to the young teenage boy demographic who like seeing a ludicrous amounts of explosions and low brow toilet humour. And of course, more characters in the movies means more opportunity to sell toys to the kids. So really, I more or less like these films in an ironic sense, in that I openly acknowledge that they aren't very good, but I still get entertainment value out of watching how ridiculously stupid they can get.
Which brings us to the latest instalment to this long-lasting series; The Last Knight. This is reportedly Bay's last time in the directing chair and Mark Wahlberg, who plays human protagonist Cade Yeager, confirmed this will be his last time in these films. Already, this movie is churning out to be a disaster, with early reviews being exceedingly negative and the opening day not having a good turnout, making $15 million on a massive £217 million budget. How low is that? Fate of the Furious made a 44% difference on it's opening day. So the film hasn't even been out for a week, and it's already shaping up to be the worst of the films just based on the reviews and lack of money coming in.
... Okay, I'm gonna have to be that guy; I actually liked this movie. It's not flawless, but I don't think it's as bad as everyone else says it is.
So, it's been some time since Optimus Prime and Cade defeated Lockdown in Age of Extinction and Optimus has headed out into space to search for The Creator, whom he finds on his ruined home of Cybertron. The Creator, Quintessa, manipulates Optimus into doing her bidding to find a spear that will drain the Earth dry to rebuild Cybertron. Oh, and it also helps that the Earth is occupied by "Cybertron's greatest enemy", Unicron.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Transformers are still fugitives and now so is Cade, as he is hiding the remaining Autobots and Dinobots in an abandoned junkyard. This all changes with Megatron returning and reuniting with some of his remaining Decepticon forces, thus Cade meets an eccentric Earl named Sir Edmund Burton, played by Sir Anthony Hopkins, who tells him about the hidden history of the Transformers and that he is important in saving the planet from it's imminent destruction, alongside Burton's robot butler Cogman and a descendent from the wizard Merlin, Vivian Wembley, played by Laura Haddock... yeah, it's that kind of film.
As one could expect, the story is at least 20 different levels of ridiculous and absurd, which can definitely turn some people off. However, this film makes up for it by doing something that most movie franchises don't do nowadays; it starts creating it's own mythology and does some world-building. A problem that I find with certain film franchises that go on for far too long, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, is an inability to probably set-up it's own story and legend to work off of, instead making the story overly convoluted to try and make it feel more "epic", but end up failing because it never gives the audience the chance to take in this information and loses sight of the story and character development.
Granted, The Last Knight's story telling isn't flawless, but it still tries to create and expand upon a mythos that audiences can get behind, incorporating Arthurian legends and myths as well as various aspects from previous Transformers' series. Stuff like the Knights of Cybertron fighting alongside King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, or ancient planet sized beings that pre-date the Autobot-Decepticon war. Heck, even working in the concept of modern philosophers and their scepticism on fantasy and the supernatural. These are things that start to add more scope to the story and make the world feel more alive. It arguably makes this the largest of the movies because of the ideas and myths that it introduces. Granted, the whole "Unicron existing inside the Earth" concept is borrowed directly from Transformers: Prime, but it was ridiculous then as well.
As per usual with these films, the action scenes and effects are pretty damn spectacular. The movements of the Transformers feels very smooth and natural, especially during the fight scenes where they really go all out with the effects budget. But it also takes things to the next level; this time, instead of just another shootout in the city, the battle is first taken into the air as the humans and Autobots, now reunited with Optimus, try making their way onto Cybertron as it enters the Earths atmosphere and starts scraping off entire chunks of the planet. Then, the battle continues on with both Autobots and humans working together to face the Decepticons on equal ground. For the first time in this franchise, it really does feel like the world is coming to an end and there's hardly any time to mess around. It makes everything feel much larger than these films had ever been before,
Now, like I said before, the film isn't flawless, and there are issues with the film that I can completely agree with. Namely, the humour in this film is really bad. I'm not talking about Anthony Hopkins and Cogman as the two of them together were a blast to watch. Rather, I'm talking about the other attempts at humour. A lot of the actors were allowed to ad-lib and improvise some lines on the spot and it just hurts to hear someone like Mark Wahlberg say "Listen here, J-Lo" or his generic black sidekick (who serves no purpose in the film, by the way) talking about his working conditions keeping giant robots hidden from the Government. Again, the only time I chuckled was when Hopkins and Cogman would banter back and forth, as it feels like typical British humour that gets a laugh out of me. But when it's followed by Vivian's mother and friends talking about getting her in bed with someone, it really brings on the cringe factor and makes it awkward to sit through.
Something else that may bother other people is the constantly changing aspect ratio. Don't know what that is? Well, it's basically, to quote my brother, "The ratio of the horizontal to the vertical. If something is 2 metres across and 1 metre tall, it has an aspect of 2:1". This is mainly to indicate which type of camera and screen setting is being used. But with this film, in between shots, it keeps on changing. One shot with have the black borders at the top and bottom, but then the next shot will cut it in half, only to go back to normal, then to disappear, then back again, on and on and on. It can get really distracting and doesn't keep consistent, especially when Bay said they were using IMAX cameras in places.
One last issue I have is with a lot of the characters; most of the new ones are practically worthless. As mentioned before, Cade now has a black sidekick helping him hide the Autobots. He serves no purpose other than some more of that awkward low brow humour that doesn't get a laugh. But then there's this kid called Izabella, played by Isabella Moner, who lives in a ruined town with her pet Autobot Squeaks and is taken in by Cade, even getting into the final battle. But outside of telling Squeaks to fight and giving Bumblebee a new voice box, she contributes absolutely nothing to the story. She could have been written out of the film and nothing would change. She's just there for a few scenes then disappears for most of the story and then she's just suddenly back. Even some of the newer non-human characters don't serve a point. They introduce Hot Rod into this movie as a stereotypical French Autobot who only matters in the final ten minutes. There's a combiner under Quintessa's control called Infernocus who gets whooped by Optimus then the individual bots get decapitated before they have a chance to fight. There are far too many new characters in this film, most of them not even serving a purpose. Tell me if you actually know the name of any of the human soldiers except for Lennox, played again by Josh Duhammel.
While I will acknowledge that much of this review has been somewhat negative, I still actually like this movie. Some of that may come from my bias as someone who was introduced to the franchise through these movies, maybe I'm just not seeing what everyone is getting so angry about. But I just wanted to make it clear that I like this movie. Even if I'm in the minority, I still stand by my opinion and will let everyone else have their own. After all, opinions are like assholes; everybody has their own. Just, please don't get to mad when I say I like the Transformers movies.
Overall rating: 7/10 (Good).
Until next time, this is Callum Lewis, the Media Man, saying... 'Til All Are One!
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