Transformers The Last Knight review: Fun but flawed
The first ten minutes of Michael Bay's fifth (and final) entry in the Hasbro toy-inspired franchise are bewildering. Set in England – The Dark Ages – it is part-Game of Thrones, part-Carry On movie. Is that Stanley Tucci, ditching his usual Transformers role as CIA suit Joshua Joyce, as a drunken Merlin? Oh look, there's a three-headed dragon in the air, as Anthony Hopkins' silken voiceover tells us that "chaos reigns". Still, it's better than watching Guy Ritchie's King Arthur movie.
Cut to the present day and Transformers are now illegal, a task force has been formed to take them down, Autobots leader Optimus Prime is stranded in space and his Decepticon nemesis Megatron is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), the everyman inventor introduced in 2014's Transformers: Age of Extinction, is hiding out in a Dakota junkyard, with sidekick Jimmy (Jerrod Carmichael) and a 14-year-old waif, Izabella (Isabela Moner), to contend with.
With more and more Transformers landing on Earth, there has to be a reason. Thankfully, Hopkins' Sir Edmund Burton, 12th Earl of Folgan, knows the answer. Living in his ancient castle in deepest England with his very own "ninja" Transformer butler Cogman (voiced by Downton Abbey's own regular manservant Jim Carter), Sir Edmund understands what few others do: that there's a storm coming.
What's more, it's all down to Optimus Prime, who has reached his home planet Cybertron, where he's confronted with his creator, the "prime of life" Quintessa (voiced by Gemma Chan). The only way to bring life back to Cybertron is to return to Earth and retrieve a magic staff that, as we saw back in the medieval intro, was bestowed upon Merlin to help save his people. Will Optimus betray the one planet that he's called home?
Joining the plot is Vivian Wembley (Laura Haddock), an Oxford history boffin who plays polo, totters around in heels and, of course, enjoys a love-hate relationship with Cade. This being a Michael Bay film, you won't find any progressive female portraits here, though Haddock – looking oddly like Megan Fox, from the first two Transformers films – gives as good as she gets. One amusing sequence, with Cogman serving her and Cade dinner, sees some nice chemistry between the two leads.
Despite bouncing around the globe (Namibia, Hong Kong, Egypt and Cuba, where John Turturro's Seymour Simmons is seen sipping mojitos), the second half is largely England-set. Westminster Bridge, Stonehenge and Oxford University all feature, with Hopkins' Sir Edmund leading the charge as the eccentric upper-class bumbler, who smokes a pipe, wears a Barbour jacket and then drops words like "Dude" and "Bitchin" into his conversation. Bizarre.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Transformers film without some Grade A destruction, and The Last Knight boasts more military hardware than a small island nation. Jet planes, tanks, aircraft carriers, submarines – you name it, Bay has commandeered it. Transformers fans will certainly get a kick out of the moment when Megatron finally reappears, bribing the US military to release his pals (in what feels like a nod to Suicide Squad), with the likes of Mohawk, Dreadbot and Nitro Zeus all making an appearance.
If Wahlberg's rock-steady presence grounds the film, when all else around him is blowing up, the one big error here is the lack of Optimus Prime. A Transformers film where he's largely absent – meaning we don't hear nearly as much of Peter Cullen's wonderful vocal turn as the character as we should – just feels plain wrong.
Still, that's not as tasteless as doing battle around Stonehenge or the already-reported controversy that saw Bay criticised for draping Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, the home of Winston Churchill, with Nazi flags for a flashback scene where the Transformers help out in World War 2 (yep, nothing is sacred here, as we learn that bright sparks like Stephen Hawking and Albert Einstein were all part of a secret society to protect the Transformers).
As punchy as the narrative can be, the main problem with The Last Knight – something that afflicts the whole franchise – is the final act. It's just one big metal gangbang, where humans, robots, planes and god knows what else come together for what feels like an eternity. Bay doesn't do small – never has – and this 149-minute monster takes some stamina to make it through to the end.
Like Hopkins tells us, chaos reigns in a film that bounces from Excalibur to a Crimson Tide-like submarine thriller without a moment's thought. But if you can stand the ear-shattering sound design, and the half-crazy plot, you might enjoy a fun but flawed ride. With a neat post-credits reveal that's worth hanging around for, Bay may be leaving the franchise, but the Transformers look set to live on.
Director: Michael Bay Screenplay: Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Ken Nolan; Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Duhamel, Laura Haddock, Isabela Mona, Stanley Tucci; Running time: 149 minutes; Certificate: TBC
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