Transformers: The Last Knight Needs to Be a Prophetic Title
Michael Bay is back, and he brought his bag of tricks with him for the fifth installment of the (seemingly never ending) saga of the robots in disguise. Does Transformers: The Last Knight bring anything new to the table? Short answer is no, but here’s my analysis.
The Last Knight takes place not too long after Optimus Prime left Earth to confront his creator, Quintessa, on Planet Cybertron. Since that time, a war has commenced between the human race and the Transformers. To save the Earth, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) forms an alliance with Bumblebee, an astronomer, and an Oxford University professor named Vivian Wembly (Laura Haddock) to learn the secrets of an ancient power from Arthurian Legend, and also why the Transformers keep coming back to Earth.
This was definitely a Michael Bay Transformers’ movie, right down to the unnecessary John Turturro appearances.
In spite of the fact that I did not watch Transformers: Age of Extinction on principal, I can say undoubtedly that Bay has learned nothing from his previous entries. For example he still has the racial sensitivity of 10-year old sociopath, by having renowned actor Ken Watanabe voice Autobot Drift, who is a Samurai Mercedes!
At least that was more creative than what they did with Autobot Hound, who was basically a cybertronian version of John Goodman. And for some reason Autobot Hot Rod (voiced by Omar Sy) is now French, but I guess since Bumblebee basically took his role from the original continuity, they had to add to a little extra flavor to him, not to mention that he is also a walking deus ex machina (with a literal emphasis on the machina part.) He now has the ability to temporarily slow down time — it’s never explained either, he just shows up, speaks with an obnoxious French accent, and allows the humans to make a daring escape, instead of fighting alongside his Autobot comrades.
But we got to see plenty of the Johnny 5 knock off Sqweaks (voiced by Reno Wilson), who does little more than try to make himself marketable for the ages 8 and under crowd so they will buy his toys. But I will say this much, this was by far Williams’ least “make me want to punch him in the vocal chords” performance, albeit because he didn’t actually speak. That throat punching honor goes to his Decepticon Mohawk performance, which thankfully was brief.
Steve Buscemi was a Transformer too, which went by the name Daytrader, who honestly at first I confused with Joe Pantoliano, because both of them play weaselly characters like this, and sound eerily the same.
Bay still can’t decide if Bumblebee is mute or not, so much as to where it becomes a plot point at the end of the of second act. It was cute in the first movie, but now the sound clips are irritating — please hire a voice actor for Bumblebee already! I recommend Will Friedle, he has done an awesome job in Transformers Prime, and Robots in Disguise.
Oh and Tom Kenny is back as Wheelie, and does jack squat.
The best voice acting work goes to John DiMaggio, Frank Welker, Peter Cullen, and Jim Carter, in no specific order, with honorable mentions to Gemma Chan. Welker, DiMaggio, and Cullen are masters of their craft, so to avoid repeating myself, I will just say they still rock. Jim Carter as the sociopathic automaton Cogman was the most fun aspect of this movie. He hated everyone accepted his master Sir Edmond Burton (Sir Anthony Hopkins) and I just fell in love with him. The same could not be said for Chan’s Quintessa, because her character was so bland and forgettable, but well-acted.
In this review I decided to put the robots first, because it’s their movie, however you wouldn’t know that from how little screen time they get. Please Mike, tell me more about Laura Haddock’s failing love life and her stupid aunts who keep bugging her about it! I just don’t understand why Bay keeps doing this over and over again — the franchise is called Transformers, not humans!
But I digress. Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, and Jerrod Carmichael all do things, mostly break the laws of physics, recite one-liners, and fill-up screen time that could have been used to focused on the titular characters.
My heart goes out to young Isabela Moner, who in her opening scene is shown being hit on by a group of middle school kids that she has just saved from government sanctioned walking tanks. The girl is 15 going on 16 as of this review, chill! I get that Michael Bay doesn’t respect women, but this is a new level of creepy, even for him.
Sir Anthony Hopkins’ celeb cameo was the most toned down of any that I have seen in the franchise — he still chews the scenery but at least it’s not John Malkovich’s performance. Hopkins plays his role like the crazy granddad that constantly leaves the house in only his boxers, and he was the only likable human character for that reason.
If familiarity breeds contempt, Michael Bay’s body of work is the very embodiment of that statement. The Last Knight is a formulaic unimaginative mess that is still embarrassed by its roots, after more than a decade. I avoided the last film for this reason — he clearly he doesn’t care, so he makes it hard me to care as well. But like Michael Bay said it best, people are still going to watch these things regardless of complaints, and judging by the fact there was applause at the end, he’s right.
I give Transformers: The Last Knight a 1.5 out of 5.
