FILM REVIEW: TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (12A)

Michael Bay has literally transformed this fifth instalment into one of the worst movies of all-time.

After the initially promising first film, the last four films have been an absolute slog – and this is even more dreadful than 2014’s Age of Extinction which was rated 1.5/5 to make that the worst reviewed film from ESP that year.

And after a terrible franchise low opening in the States – despite Chinese audiences initially lapping it up – director and producer Bay has finally got what he deserves after releasing film after film of brainless trash based on Hasbro’s famous ‘robots in disguise’.

Bay – who to be fair has provided us with a few guilty pleasures like Armageddon, The Rock and Bad Boys – simply should’ve walked (along with Mark Wahlberg and the returning Josh Duhamel) before this latest film, with the series being semi-re-booted to compliment a planned extended universe to potentially include a solo Bumblebee movie spin-off.

But no. He couldn’t leave well alone. And had to fire out another long and arduous slice of incoherent big-budget drivel that is as soulless as it is joyless. The money spent on this could have gone to seriously help world hunger for Pete’s sake.

This time humanity is at war with the alien robots – not really caring if they’re Autobots or Decepticons – hunted by the Transformers Reaction Force (TRF), who’ve formed a multi-national army to eliminate the threat.

We are told of the Transformers existence since medieval times – cue humourless performance from Stanley Tucci’s Merlin – and a brainwashed Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) has been ordered by sorceress Quintessa to find an ancient artefact that will change the planet into the now-destroyed Cybertron, which is advancing on Earth.

In the meantime former inventor Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) has gone rogue to hide some of his Autobot pals – including Bumblebee and Hound (John Goodman) – and he gets involved with a truly annoying and unfunny side-kick Jimmy (Jerrod Carmichael), and then fearless orphaned girl Izabella (Isabela Moner), who seemed like a pivotal character, then disappears for most of the film.

Yeager then teams up with the Autobots and Laura Haddock’s Oxford professor Viviane Wembly, at the behest of Anthony Hopkins’ Sir Edmund Burton – the last surviving member of a centuries-old Transformers brotherhood – to try and save the world, with Megatron and the Decepticons standing in their way.

It basically cuts and pastes back and forth which leads to a climax at Stonehenge – but by then if you still care you must really be the ultimate hardcore fan.

There’s no doubting the quality of the special effects (when you can work out what’s going on) again, but the storyline and embarrassingly basic script are such a mess – and why it had to be this long is beyond comprehension.

There’s one cool slow-mo action sequence with Bumblebee, kick-ass Dinobot Grimlock returns, and one of the ‘bots brings Yeager an ice cold aluminium-bottled Bud Light – which is better than the sub-standard stuff we get over here – and that is arguably the highlight of this entire Godforsaken adventure.

Don’t watch in 3D if you’re tired too – or you’ll fall asleep.

Five movies in you’d hope there was going to be more to this than ‘meets the eye’ – but this is the ultimate example of blockbuster fatigue.

Let’s just hope The Last Knight is Bay’s last stand with this franchise before it is inexplicably ruined for good.

Gavin Miller

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Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Laura Haddock, Anthony Hopkins, Josh Duhamel, Isabela Moner, John Turturro, Jerrod Carmichael, Santiago Cabrera, Stanley Tucci & The Voices Of Nicola Peltz, Omar Sy, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman & Peter Cullen

Running Time: 2 Hrs29 Mins

Director: Michael Bay