Film: Transformers: The Last Knight
Cast: Mark Walhberg, Laura Haddock
Director: Michael Bay
Rating: 2/5
Michael Bay is a phenomenon. How else can you explain a director who has repeatedly been panned by both critics and audience, and yet, consistently churns out billion dollar movies?
After a refreshing start in the first film, all the other Transformers films basically follow only one template, and the latest one doesn’t deviate much either. The Transformers are a banned race and there is a Transformers Reactionary Force (TRF) formed to hunt down both the Autobots and the Decepticons. The erstwhile leader of the Decepticons, Optimus Prime, was left in search of his creator at the end of the the last movie.
He gets to meet her early in this one, when she reveals that Cybertron, the planet of the transformers, is constantly at war with Earth, which is actually the ancient arch-nemesis Unicron. Tasked to find the staff of Merlin to return Cybertron to life, she turns Optimus against his own.
You would think that such a plotline, combined with the usual love that Bay has for special effects, would make for a perfect action movie. Alas, that isn’t the case. Take for example, the character of Viviane (Laura Haddock) who is important to the storyline. Not only is the build up to the reveal of her role in the film slow, but the reveal itself is very bland. Cate Yaeger (Mark Walhberg) exists only as a carrier of an important talisman, and also to show off his abs for Viviane to fawn over. Did I say that this happens when the world is collapsing all around them? Priorities.
The film’s consolation comes in the form of Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins). The gravitas that Hopkins brings onto the screen elevates the scene instantly. For a franchise that gave some of the most scintillating battle scenes, the absence of such sequences is telling.
The screen felt very empty and bland, even though this film had the most investment in special effects. Towards the end, when Optimus destroys multiple bots in one fell swoop, the theatre was rapturous. Sadly, it was the first time the audience felt alive since the opening credits of the movie. That should be a telling sign of the franchise’s steep decline. The end promises another instalment. Michael Bay just doesn’t know when to stop, or worse, he doesn’t want to stop.