You know, after five films over the span of the last ten years, you could be forgiven for thinking that Michael Bay actually likes Transformers, however, five films in and all evidence points towards one thing: Michael Bay doesn’t give a f*&k! He doesn’t care for characters, for mythology, he doesn’t give a f*&k about storytelling, aspect ratios and doesn’t give a f*&k about the human f*&king race!!
OK, so before we start, I should say that this will probably turn out to be more rant than review.
So five films in and we’re still doing the same damn things. Yes Shia LeBouf is no longer here but we’re stuck with Marky Mark and we still have the same story being recycled over and over again: As always, we discover that the Transformers have been on Earth before, impending doom is on the horizon and a Earth-saving Maguffin is found by a human and both the Autobots and Decepticons are both in pursuit of said Maguffin. A whole bunch of human characters chew up screen-time which ultimately adds up to nothing more than padding. Big battles, non-sensical action, pointless plots and sub-plots, cringe-inducing humour, over-stuffed climax, convenient plot-devices to wrap up the finale, end with Optimus Prime sending out yet another message to Transformers to visit Earth to set up yet another f*&king sequel.
The film offers very little in new material and offers us all the same things that we have seen before/ suffered through before. You’d hope that after five films, Michael Bay would have learned a couple of things about story-telling but unfortunately, we are stuck with the same problems that we have had in the previous four films. What problems you may ask?
Well yet again we have set up that leads to no legitimate pay-off let alone a connection to what passes for a storyline. Remember we saw dinosaurs at the beginning of Age Of Extinction and that had nothing to do with the rest of the film let alone the Dinobots? Well this time we have Stanley Tucci playing Merlin in Medieval Times; there is no attempt to explain or resolve why Tucci is playing two different characters in the same film franchise. We have humans working with Decepticons again for… reasons. Yet again, a bunch of robot characters are introduced, they are all broad stereotypes and then none of them actually feature in the film in favor of a bunch of useless human characters who are all equal parts annoying and assholes. The film decides to retcon the mythology set-up in the previous films yet again - meaning lots of expositional bullsh*t that eats up the run-time and makes all previous storylines defunct, questionable and overall frustrating.
Of course, Michael Bay also considers himself a comedian, and we are not spared from his perceived “comedy gold” in this film. Bay thinks he’s a funny guy but his “comedy” is even more frequent in this film and more tone-deaf than ever. Comedy is just wedged in the oddest places in this movie and interrupts any flow or momentum the movie might be garnering. On top of this, as always, Michael Bay’s idea of funny harbours deep-seated racism, misogyny, homophobia and sexism whether it be one of these things or a combination in a single character or moment, be it directly, indirectly or back-handily; yet again, Michael Bay has not learned anything from previous films.
If I had to award this film one credit, it’s the same credit that you have to award the previous films: Industrial Light & Magic’s special effects are jaw-dropping, they really have managed to create photorealistic giant talking robots that look like they exist in the real-world (just as long as the real world doesn’t have to include physics or gravity). However, even these great visual effects are undercut by Michael Bay’s insistence on switching between three different aspect ratios throughout the film - does he use this in a smart way that enhances the story? Well, to summarise, Bay likes to use the I-Max camera whenever he is filming this installments “hot chick” played by The Inbetweeners’ Laura Haddock and then uses a regular old boring 35mm camera when shooting Marky Mark - even when they are in the same scene together! So yeah, no real artistic integrity can be argued here….
Now as a fan of the original animated series, I just struggle to see how this franchise has always managed to get it so wrong. I don’t want a carbon copy of the animated series, but I always feel that these films have just missed the point of what made the original TV series so great. It was a simple story about good guys and bad guys. The bad guys wanted to rip the Earth of its’ natural resources with no care for human casualties, whilst the Autobots did everything in their power to protect. The show was filled with great themes of honour, loyalty, deception and betrayal - yet was essentially one giant toy commercial. Somehow these films have only ever focused on being a toy commercial, a toy commercial with lots of sponsors and product placement. Moving forward, if this is Bay’s final outing, I hope that the franchise tries to capture the simplicity of the TV series and not get bogged down in all these unnecessary sub-plots and pointless Maguffin-quests.
Transformers: The Last Knight gets One Star for visual effects and a thousand prayers to whatever god you pray to that this will be Michael Bay’s last swing at this series.
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