Transformers: The Last Knight movie review — A gloomy and tiresome slog to the finale

When anyone mentions the phrase ‘a waste of resources’ the Transformers films come to mind. No other product (yes they’re products, not films) in history has used so much money and manpower to turn out to be so consistently terrible. The latest installment, titled Transformers: The Last Knight, and unfortunately not The Last Movie is precisely as bad as the previous one, with no real reason to exist. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been following the storyline because The Last Knight (aka Transformers 5) is a standalone movie of sorts. In fact you don’t need to see any of the previous Transformers movies to sit through this one. This time the action begins in the medieval ages with King Arthur waging a war and Merlin finding a Transformer and seeking help to win the war. In the present day, a group of soldiers beef up to face a new threat, while a group of teenagers talk shit with friendly Autobots and Mark Wahlberg somehow injects himself into the story as an ‘inventor’ who will help save humanity from the evil Decepticons. [caption id=“attachment_3757507” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Still from Transformers: The Last Knight aka Transformers 5. Image via Twitter[/caption] As you have guessed, this is the exact same formula from the previous films, but to mix things up this time, Optimus Prime lands on his home planet to seek his origins. Nothing in that segment of the plot, however, makes any difference and the film proceeds to be precisely as long, droning, loud and inconsequential as you expect it to be. You get robots fighting robots, robots fighting humans, humans fighting humans, but as awesome as that sounds on paper it’s still a gloomy and tiresome slog to the finale that only promises more of the same for years to come. Michael Bay’s penchant for big explosions is once again at the forefront, but neither does that skillset become a source for comedy nor does it offer anything new for audiences. The auteur has famously recycled shots from his previous films, but even such tactics don’t matter here because the story is so painfully familiar. There are no stakes, and knowing the good guys will win at the end takes away any sense of tension or danger from the fight scenes. And it seems Hollywood has drank the ‘Civil War’ juice seeing as this is the fourth film in two years to utilise the plot thread of the heroes in the film battling against each other because they’re manipulated by a third entity. Wahlberg once again demonstrates he’s one of the worst actors who keeps grabbing starring roles in big films — his bored face making no attempt to hide the fact that he’s in these films for the quick paycheck. The other human characters are as irritating as him, and it really makes you wonder why these Transformers films are more about the humans than the awesomely designed robots. Bay claims to make films for 14-year-old boys, but even that demographic deserves better films than this. It’s about time we got back the Bay from The Rock instead of the boring and lazy filmmaker that he is today_._