By Merlin's Beard! - A "Transformers: The Last Knight" Review

Before I go on to start off on this review, there just has to be the usual warning at the beginning of the reviews for a movie; especially for these kinds of movies since I've done a review on it before with a rant about the fourth film of the series.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Today I finally got a chance to head out to a theatre in Etobicoke and meet up with a friend, as I purchased tickets on the website to see the newest Transformers installation after another three-year long wait. (Last movie was in 2014.) Having been watching these movies for ten years in the theatres, I thought I could settle and go with the tradition of seeing it on the big screen. We waited for a bit as me and her were there since 3pm, but got into the screening at 3:30pm to get our reserved seats and watch the film.

When the movie began, I knew somehow that there was going to be the same formula that would be repeated just like with the last three movies before this. To be honest, it is the exact same thing as the first film for this one - but it's slightly an improvement over Age of Extinction.

Remember when Optimus left to find the Creators? Guess again, he's floating through space and placing himself into complete hypersleep. As for the Seed that he was seen leaving Earth with at the end, it's never mentioned again or never given any other purpose in this film's plot. You would think he would land on the Quintesson planet... nope. He lands right on the remains of Cybertron that are heading to Earth.

When seeing and observing the trailers, some others predicted that it could be either Unicron or disciples of Unicron. But it's all revealed to be Cybertron coming back to Earth, no kidding. Even the references to Dark of the Moon gave out and made appearances like the Ark that had crashed on the moon carrying Sentinel Prime. Even so, the Ark is blasted away by rubble of Cybertron's remains as it scratches away the Moon's surface.

On Earth, the film starts off in the Dark Ages with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, and apparently Merlin's Staff is the most important item in this film. You would think there would be more scenes of the ancient Transformer knights in that era... but it turns out that the film is mostly in modern times especially with the Dinobots messing around, plus there's a butler who is a robot named Cogman.

They introduce a few new characters into the story, but there are two that actually caught my attention for the majority of the film. Hot Rod and Quintessa.

Hot Rod doesn't really serve much of a purpose in this film other than fighting in the battle later in the film, and serving Anthony Hopkins' character. He also has a French accent, but with all honestly he doesn't really have any memorable for him, neither Cogman either with the exception of how he is the same height as a human.

As shown in the picture, that is the villain of the movie named "Quintessa". A female sorceress who wants to destroy the Earth and rebuild Cybertron if she obtains the staff that Merlin received from the ancient Cybertron knights. She looks that she will do anything to get her way, even if it means to brainwash Optimus Prime and give him a different name... Nemesis Prime.

If you were wondering what happened with the aliens who caused the dinosaur extinction at the beginning of AoE, that's never mentioned again either.

Optimus is brainwashed into thinking he is now Nemesis Prime, and goes all-out with making sure he will fight and defeat anyone who stands in his way. There involves a fight between him and Bumblebee with Mark Wahlberg's character from the fourth film returning to attempt to make Optimus snap out of it.

He does snap out of it in the battle rather quickly when Bumblebee actually speaks for the first time without the radio usage. Optimus becomes reverted back to normal, and is filled with such guilt for what he tried to do - even when Megatron and his goons retrieve the staff and proceed on their way to deliver it to Quintessa for the end of Earth and the rebirth of Cybertron. Optimus is nearly killed by the knights who think he betrayed Earth to Quintessa until Mark Wahlberg intervenes with Excalibur and allows Optimus to be the leader as he is many times.

If you're wondering why she wants to destroy Earth, you better get ready to hear this...

No really, you're going to be in a bit of a shock especially when you notice the curved spikes coming out from the ground in the teasers especially the Super Bowl. Drop everything you are doing and look the text below with all cap locks with all of your attention:

THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY UNICRON.

No really, it's not a joke or anything. Quintessa is trying to weaken Unicron who actually is Earth and has been burying itself. Now you might be thinking "Wha.... that's not right. Unicron can't be Earth because he is his own separate entity." Again, this is different context from the original 80s cartoon, so my mind was a bit blown.

With the human characters, we do have a female lead (ugh...) but with a British accent so at least it isn't Megan Fox or that annoying chick from AoE. We don't have one, but two female leads with the difference being the second is younger.

The young female kid actually fights against the organization trying to rid the Transformers off of the planet including Decepticons. She's just waltzing up to Megatron like "I'm not afraid of you! You think I'm scared of you?!" when they have her Autobot buddy. They have weapons that could kill her and all she can do is march up towards him screaming at him and trying to be brave. Hey though, it's part of feminist propaganda you see nowadays.

Not really much happens aside from the Merlin's Staff legacy and a few of the unnecessary jokes in the film, but it just so happens that Mark Wahlberg was the last knight and that the British female lead is the descendant of Merlin... no words right there but an interesting concept.

Most of the film, it's either humans or explosions after explosions. Optimus appears far less in this movie than he has in the other films. I'd say he's in it for practically 15 - 20 minutes of the film, plus a few other characters return as well along with Wheelie who doesn't really serve any purpose in the film.

In the end, you have the usual. Quintessa is defeated along with Megatron and his goons, Megatron has his right arm cut off and kicked out of the wall to fall to his death. Though it is most likely that he survived and will want revenge on Optimus and the Autobots. Same kind of speech from Optimus Prime at the end. Though there is a twist at the end that Quintessa managed to survive during the beginning of the credits.

Aaaannnnnnnnnnd cue the sequels being made.

Overall:

I thought The Last Knight was a slight improvement over the last film that had been released. Still focused on mostly the humans, but at least had a different writer for this one than the two who wrote both Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction. We had a few references to the past movies like the Ark and the pyramid that hid the Sun Harvester that the Fallen wanted to use.

It's not the best sequel, but it's a popcorn flick. If any, I am quite thankful that this will be Michael Bay's final Transformers film he is working on. The directors for the upcoming Bumblebee movie next year and Transformers 6 in two years are yet to be announced, but it will have no Michael Bay involvement.

So now the formula is exactly the same in this movie like all the other sequels before: Enemy wants a weapon that will result in world devastation and the good guys need to find it before them. Bad guys try to win, but the good guys defeat them.

You don't have to watch the same thing over and over, you can demand for something new. For example, McDonalds comes out with a new sandwich once in a while and you don't have to have the same meal over and over again. You can demand for something quite creative and they could make it.

I believe it's all up to you if you want either the same formula spoonfed to you over and over or something completely different. But again, it's anyone's choice to choose.

\m/ Brayden \m/