Transformers: The Last Knight is Rushed, Messy Mayhem

The very first thing you’ll see in Transformers: The Last Knight is a war raging in the forests of Medieval England, a war waged by both the Knights of the Round Table and stony, moss-covered Cybertronians that look as though they stepped out of a mysterious British tapestry from when it was still called Britannia. It feels remarkably different from what I was used to for this franchise in a way that suggests that Michael Bay was hoping to tie all of his Transformers movies together under one large mythos in a plea for their immortality - the only problem is that this latest entry is going to be immortalized for all the wrong reasons. The cinematic tapestry he wants to weave is soiled by the many woefully trite, clichéd things scribbled on it like an irresponsible kid with a crayon. This is an unfocused jumble of overplotting and overdone special effects, and though it obviously wants to go somewhere radically new for its franchise, that journey is off to a messy, messy start.

Just as Bay shuffled his usual tropes around with Age of Extinction, he also uses The Last Knight to try to take Transformers somewhere new. As it turns out, the famed wizard Merlin and his near-ancient Knights got their “magic” from Cybertronians, though Merlin is portrayed with such annoying levity here as to make you question how he became so legendary in the first place. In the modern day, humans have both discussed and debated Merlin and his allies to no end and used alien technology for their own purposes, one of which is government-deployed robotic sentinels that guard post-apocalyptic-looking areas of America that the government doesn’t want people to see, not even curious kids. The US Government is also ramping up its crackdown on all remaining Autobots and Decepticons, seeing them as equally responsible for the destruction of major cities, and inventor Cade has teamed up with Bumblebee as a force of inconvenient, involuntary lawlessness. It’s an admittedly fresh and promising approach, but Bay’s methods soon wear out their welcome – after all, one can only see an aspect ratio needlessly change so many times before it gets annoying.

Rather than lean on another legitimately good performance from Mark Wahlberg, Bay's new tactics rely on treasure hunting and sci-fi movie clichés that pile on each other until Cade gets lost in the shuffle; however, Anthony Hopkins does give a wonderful performance as Sir Edmund Burton, an elderly, eccentric British artifact collector with a forceful personality and a treasure trove of knowledge on Cybertron. But there are too many subplots here for the good of this movie’s performers. As for Optimus Prime, he’s floating in deep space – until he encounters a mysterious, female Cybertronian named Quintessa, that is. You’ve got the manipulative relationship between her and Prime. You’ve got an arc dedicated to Megatron negotiating with the military for the release of his Decepticons. You’ve got one about Cade’s exploits inside restricted areas. And all of this happens within the first forty-five minutes of a movie that wants you to believe that even the stuff it barely nods to is somehow important.

I can appreciate The Last Knight for trying something new, but its unfocused plot is as thin as office paper, rushing from one thing to the next without bothering to try and make whatever it’s doing matter before moving on to something else. The whole affair is completely imbalanced, and you may wonder why so much attention is given to one element of the movie, while another element that is arguably of equal relevance gets relatively ignored. The visuals of the movie fall victim to the same excess. Though the CGI is top-of-the-line, there’s too much going on. What this movie hopes will look epic ends up looking like an unfocused jumble of various, unrelated things happening instead.

Granted, there are a lot of subtle, wordless nods to how Cybertron’s technology has brought Earth into the future, one of which is a silent, robotic janitor who looks and acts much like a real person would, until you account for the fact that he doesn’t even react when Cade and his crew run by as they try to escape from killer drones. However, this movie is equally concerned with the past, seeking to reconcile humanity's history with Cybertron's existence. For instance, we see Bumblebee and other Autobots boosting the firepower of Allied commandos during World War II. We see Autobots giving Lancelot a helping hand in medieval warfare, as I mentioned earlier. One can’t help but wonder why we haven’t heard about any of this until now. The Last Knight is trying to trace the lines of the past, and it often loses touch with the present. Some subplots are dropped for long enough to the point where they may surprise you when they reappear: oh...that did happen, didn’t it?

The exposition may be overwhelming here, but the clichés are even worse. There are also so many of them in this movie, clichés like one of the characters being a descendant of a special line, a “chosen one” of sorts, that is the only person who can save the world. Remember how I told you how this movie sometimes feels fresh? The ironic thing is that when you sit down to think about what it’s actually trying to do, it’s not hard to see that it’s actually as stale as month-old bread. I won’t blame you for spitting it out before you’re done with it.

The last thing you see in Transformers: The Last Knight is a Cybertron that has moved close to Earth, its metal, tendril-like connections to Earth swinging down through our atmosphere. It’s a startling sight, a sign that Bay wants to try something new, but his old storytelling habits still tie him down, even if it seems as though he’s outrun some of his other less desirable thematic tendencies. This movie feels important, but it doesn’t know how to be important, and it has a philosophy of the more, the merrier. Perhaps it would have felt more important had it chosen one crisis and stuck to it. Instead, Bay runs all over the world again, looking for answers that are found not in excess, but in simplicity. He aims higher and misses entirely.

Transformers: The Last Knight – 2/10

Luke 5:36-39