Yesterday afternoon I decided to take a break from some other tasks, and go see the new Transformers movie; Transformers: The Last Knight.
Let me begin by saying that I am actually a big fan of the Transformers; even the ones from Michael Bay. I actually like his adaptation (and that’s what they are, his version of them). I own them on bluray. I’ve watched each one at least four times. I’ve defended them in discussions when people have nothing but bad things to say; even for the second one which was pretty bad. My favourite one is Dark of the Moon, written by Ehren Kruger. This movie is probably the one in the live action version that adheres closest to the originals; even making use of a storyline from the original Gen 1 cartoon where they bring Cybertron to Earth’s orbit. He even brought in the original Autobot Spaceship-the Ark, which Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman left out of the original movies, preferring the robots to come flying in like asteroids for some reason.
So, I like the movies.
The Last Knight however, is easily the worst of the lot. The connection to the story is a bare thread of connection to the original source materials. The dialogue is tedious, and at times I found myself literally facepalming in the middle of the film.
I actually liked the idea of bringing Merlin into this, and connecting it. But this was not handled well. Convenient plot point after convenient plot point bringing the main female lead to bear as “Merlin’s descendant. She actually didn’t really “do” anything useful.
On the topic of not doing anything. The girl from the trailer? The one they were advertising and pushing all through the marketing? She does nothing. She’s just kind of “there” in the middle of things, for no real reason. Don’t get me wrong. The girl did great for what she had to do. She made the character actually memorable compared to everyone else, but she is not given anything to do in the story.
Transformers The Last Knight is the one where they decided to bring in Unicron (4 films later). The big baddie of the original Transformers animated movie. Voiced originally by the great Orson Welles. The destroyer of worlds. The enemy of the Transformers, and Cybertron. So what did they do with him?
They ruined it.
Unicron is barely mentioned, and is never seen apart from his horns. It is stated in the movie that Cybertron and Unicron are enemies (which is their usage on Unicron\Primus storyline). Except that in this movie, Unicron is Earth. It is why the Transformers keep coming back to Earth. So throughout this storyline, Unicrons horns are appearing through the ground in different locations around the planet. This also ends up being for nothing, and is also never really dealt with. The reveal of Quintessa at the end I’m gathering is supposed to lead into the sequel where this would carry onto. But even then, there was no reason to bring it up now.
Bringing Unicron into the story in this way is ridiculous for a couple of main reasons.
- We’ll now never see Unicron destroyed, because they won’t kill Earth.
- For the same reason, we’ll never see him transform.
- The Transformers are effectively now protecting their enemy, against their home (Cybertron).
If you know anything about cinematography in this, you will also be appalled at the distracting aspect ratio changing as it cuts between IMAX frame, and scope in the middle of the action sequences. Unlike Christopher Nolan, who films the fight sequence in IMAX and then cuts back to scope. This cuts in the middle of the fighting.
Overall, this movie is a disastrous mess of story, cinematography, and dialogue. It’s only worth having in your collection if you’re a completest and have to have the set. This movie is not even worth seeing in IMAX. There’s nothing really there for the visuals that haven’t been seen before.
A solid 4/10 for me on this one. Please don’t hire these writers again Mr Studio executive. Or if you do, hand them some Transformers comics and make them research.
What do you think? Did you see it? Do you agree\disagree?
Dreaming Screenwriter 