Transformers: The Last Knight Review:
Business As Usual
BY IAN
TAN
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| Their posters, unlike the movies themselves, get better and better with each film |
When it was announced that Michael
Bay would return to direct Transformers:
The Last Knight, I died a little bit inside. I’m happy with the technical
and visual level Bay has set for the franchise, but by the time Age of Extinction came out in 2014, I
really thought it was high time Bay left the director’s chair to make way for someone else to breathe new life into the franchise. However, I did have hopes
for The Last Knight, not for any
reason to do with Bay but because of the new writers room that Paramount set up
to expand the live-action Transformers’ mythology and create a shared cinematic
universe. Additionally, Bay and the writers promised that The Last Knight would boast more Transformers lore and mythology
than the others that came before it. So, I was obviously excited to finally see
a Transformers film dive deep into the mythos of the Autobots and Decepticons.
With a story conceived by Oscar-winning
writer Akiva Goldsman and written by Iron
Man (2008) scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, as well as Black Hawk Down writer Ken Nolan, I
thought that this Transformers movie would finally, finally be the one to break
the mold and be, I dare say, great.
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| Bay sure loves his magic hour shots |
Long story short, I was wrong. This
isn’t the great Transformers movie I was hoping for.
Now, I’m usually one to defend Michael
Bay. I’ve always thought he had it in him to direct a truly great Transformers
film, but with every film in the series he’s directed, including The Last Knight, he’s proven me wrong.
In all of these films, I’ve seen very, very tiny glimpses of great
Transformers stories struggling to escape Bay’s penchant for obnoxious
characters, unrealistic and corny dialogue, cheesy humour and rapid-fire
editing. And sadly, The Last Knight isn’t
that much different.
Okay, it’s better than the overlong and
tedious Age of Extinction and the
atrocious Revenge of The Fallen, and
the story is more engaging and less paper thin as Dark of the Moon’s, but it
isn’t as good as it could have been considering all the new writing talent
behind the film.
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| Who needs Dinobots when you have a three-headed dragon? |
There’s some good stuff to be found
here, though. I felt that the overall story this time was pretty interesting,
with Athurian legend and World War II put into the mix. The characters too, are
more involved in the plot and are way less annoying than the characters in the
past films have been, and each character has their own time to shine. There are
even a couple of times where we get some genuinely good character moments. And
needless to say, the visuals – especially in 3D – are terrific; the best
they’ve ever been since the first film.
Unfortunately, none of that good stuff
rises above some of the typical Bay-ness that this film is smothered with. There
are still moments of cringe-worthy attempts at humour (especially with Merlin
in the film’s opening sequence) that ruin the dramatic weight of what should be
serious scenes. Also, the editing is as clustered and as fast-paced as ever,
quickly moving from one story beat to the next before you can fully digest what
happened in the scene before. And it’s really this movie that shows how weak
Bay is at directing proper emotional scenes for characters. While the script
does include some good character moments, Bay doesn’t seem to have a handle on
how to make them as emotionally impactful as they probably were on paper, save
for the relationship between Sir Anthony Hopkins’ character and his robot
butler Cogman.
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| Carry on, Cogman |
All in all, I do think that The Last Knight is one of the better Transformers films, but considering the
$260 million dollars Paramount invested into this film and the talented team of
writers they got to elevate the film’s story, they really should have come up
with something way better. Well, if I have to be completely honest, they
shouldn’t have let Bay touch The Last
Knight. Every bad thing about this film is a result of Bay’s direction and poor
storytelling capabilities. I think the
film has a decent script with an interesting story and more meaningful
characters than the last four films did, but ultimately, it’s not a script Bay
should have directed. In another director’s hands, this film might have worked
out well, but with Bay at the helm, it’s just business as usual for the Transformers franchise.
Score: 6.5/10
