Transformers: The Last Knight
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Transformers: The Last Knight is a 2017 American science fiction action film based on the Transformers toy line. It is the fifth and final installment of the live-action Transformers film series to be directed by Micheal Bay. When the film was released on June 21, 2017, worldwide, it was critically panned by critics, audiences and audience alike, reaching a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, marketing the worst-reviewed film of the Transformers series.
Plot
Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), Bumblebee, an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins), and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).
Why It Sucks
- This film repeats the same plot from its previous Transformers movies. If you've seen the previous movies or its first one, then you've already seen this film.
- Wasted the potential of Mohawk, Dreadbot, Onslaught, and Berserker.
- The writing is very messy and poor considering the fact that it took seven writers for this film's script. It's as if Michael Bay never really cared about these movies anymore.
- Confusing and incomprehensible plot that is full of retcons, continuity errors, and plot-holes.
- Megatron was actually Galvatron from the last film, now he's Megatron again?
- Optimus claimed that he hasn't heard Bumblebee speak since the fall of Cybertron, even though he talked (though temporary) in the first movie.
- In the first movie, Optimus Prime says they learned Earth Language through the World Wide Web, yet the transformers can talk English normally during the King Author era.
- Speaking of which, after the first movie, Bumblebee doesn't talk in the other Transformers films, but in here, he does without any explanation why.
- Cybertron was said to be destroyed in the previous movies, yet in this movie it's actually still around, but dying.
- How did Bumblebee even fight throughout World War II?
- A little rapid hand watch Transformer apparently killed Hitler?
- Sir Edmund Burton says that an Autobot would pass on to every Witwicky and serve them, yet Sam Witwicky's parents were shocked to know about the transformers.
- The biggest plot-hole of them all, Megatron negotiates with Lennox about releasing certain Decepticons out of prison, which doesn't make sense since Megatron can free them himself or the Deceptions can free themselves since they're large robots. It doesn't help the fact that N.E.S.T. should have destroyed them, there's no reason for them to "arrest" them other than for making this scene.
- Chicago is still a ruined city despite it being rebuilt in the previous film.
- Barricade somehow survived the Battle of Chicago with no explanation of how he escaped.
- The acting of the human characters from actors such as Mark Wahlberg and Stanley Tucci is very hammy and poor, even more than Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky.
- Some characters from the previous film, peculiarly Grimlock, rarely appear in this film.
- The Dinobots are flandernized. In the previous movie they were brave warriors, but here they act more as pets instead of fighting at all.
- It, yet again, over-uses a lot of explosions, because since it is a Michael Bay film.
- Some of the robots/transformers are obvious rip-offs from Star Wars, such as Squeeks being an obvious clone of R2-D2, and Cogman being an obvious clone of C-3PO as stated by Crosshairs.
- Similar to Grindor from Revenge of the Fallen, most members of Megatron's crew are reused CGI models. This proves that the animators were too lazy to make new ones.
- Bumblebee's new vehicle mode looks ugly, as the front looks like one giant grill. Even worst is that the look was carried over to the actual Chevrolet Camaro. Here's proof.
- Similar to Age of Extinction, Michael Bay trolled fans by making them think that the Aston Martin and McLaren in London were gonna be new characters, which ended up being false.
- The film focuses more on establishing sequels than focusing on its own story.
- Awful soundtrack.
- It keeps switching aspect ratios. Unlike Christopher Nolan's movies, which switch from widescreen to IMAX when a major action scene happens, this switches from 1.85:1 (TV aspect ratio, close to IMAX), 2.00:1 (Univisium aspect ratio, popular on Netflix) and 2.35:1 (common cinema aspect ratio) at random points, even during conversations, which is very distracting. It doesn't help the fact it took six editors to edit this movie.
- Speaking of said editing, the movie also has numerous frame-rate drops.
- The action sequences are bland, lazy and a step back from the previous installments and are very disorienting to watch.
- False Advertising: The trailers and posters made it look like Optimus Prime was going to be the main antagonist of the film. But he is barely in the film and just in it at the third act.
- Speaking of which, the whole movie made it so obvious that Optimus Prime is the evil Autobot right from the first time we see him on screen.
- The cinematography is completely lazy and terrible as makes it feel more like a direct-to-video and/or made for TV movie.
- So much padding and pointless filler that makes it feel longer than it actually is, and because of this, there wasn't any character development for anyone.
- The ending is completely abysmal and nothing more than sequel-bait.
- This film nearly killed the Transformers Movie series if it weren't for BumblebeeGMW.
Redeeming Qualities
- Great voice acting from the Autobots, thanks to the cast reprising their roles.
- The CGI is still very cool, just like the previous films.
- Cade Yeager is still a tolerable protagonist.
- Unlike Transformers: Age of Extinction, the filmmakers managed to tone down the product placement.
- Although short, Optimus Prime's fight with Bumblebee is epic.
- There are some funny moments, such as the scene where Crosshairs calls Cogman a "C-3PO rip off", and Cogman replying to him by breaking one of his fingers.
- Despite looking like a KSI Boss with Shockwave's head, Nitro Zeus became a fan favorite Decepticon.
- Its successor, BumblebeeGMW, is a major improvement over the film.
Reception
Critical response
Transformers: The Last Knight was panned by critics, audiences and fans alike with criticism focused on its length, story, direction, narrative, performances, script, cinematography, and constant format changes throughout and is considered the worst-reviewed film of the Transformers series, though the fight scenes, musical score, visuals, and voice acting received some praise. It was the lowest rated Transformers film with only 15% approval rating in Rotten Tomatoes and an average 3.24/10 rating from audiences. The site critic consensus reads, "Cacophonous, thinly plotted, and boasting state-of-the-art special effects, The Last Knight is pretty much what you'd expect from the fifth installment of the Transformers franchise.". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 27 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same score as the second film, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave a 75% overall positive score and a 55% "definite recommend".
Box office
Transformers: The Last Knight was the franchise's first box office bomb, grossing $605.4 million, against a production budget of $217 million with an estimated loss of over $100 million for both Paramount and Hasbro.
Due to the failure of the movie, its sequels were cancelled and the franchise was rebooted with Bumblebee.
Accolades
Transformers: The Last Knight was nominated for ten Razzie Awards, but all lost to The Emoji Movie, The Mummy, Daddy's Home 2, Fifty Shades Darker, and Baywatch.
External Links
Transformers: The Last Knight at the Internet Movie Database
Transformers: The Last Knight on Rotten Tomatoes
Comments
- Science fiction films
- Action films
- Adventure films
- Thriller films
- Based on toylines
- 2010s films
- Paramount films
- Movies That Killed the Franchise
- Bad Movies from Good Franchises
- Films with cancelled/scrapped sequels
- Box office bombs
- Razzie Awards Worst Picture nominees
- Worst Screenplay nominees
- Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel Nominees
- Live-action films
- Films with misleading posters
- Films Aware of How Bad They Are
- Hasbro Films
- Michael Bay films
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