Name of Movie: Transformers: The Last Knight
Director: Michael Bay
Main Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Stanley Tucci, Laura Haddock, Isabela Moner, John Turturro
To start with, the fifth installment of the Transformers franchise had a high amount of anticipation, but along with it, there were also assumptions that the movie won’t bring anything different from the previous movies and would be a continuation of the same formula of pure action with less logic and focus on plot and story. The Last Knight, however, did have the beginnings of a great plot, but somewhere near the mid-point, everything started to get out of place.
Plot
The Last Knight focuses into the Origins of the Transformers as the start of the movie takes us into 484 AD during the period of War between the Britain Defence Vs. the Saxons. In a very desperate situation, all hopes are laid on King Arthur’s Wizard Merlin(Stanley Tucci), who has in possession, an Object of immense power which is primarily the treasure all the different teams of the story run after in the present, including the Autobots, the Decepticons and the Human military force exclusively formed to negate and control Transformer invasions on Earth, the TRF(Transformers Reaction Force).
Talking about the present, we are shown the World where Transformers are considered illegal and are forced to hide from the TRF. Then we are introduced to Izabella (Isabela Moner), a young 14-year-old Orphan girl who has a great amount of love for the alien race. While trying to save some troublesome kids who entered in a restricted zone where an alien ship crash landed, she loses one of the only two Transformers whom she considered as Family, due to the military force. Then comes the entry of the main lead of the previous movie and the present one, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) who arrives just in time along with his pal Bumblebee to save everyone, and while he tries to look around the crash site, he encounters a transformer who gives Cade a Metallic Talisman, which symbolized something which is of a great importance in a later part of the Movie.
The Object which was talked about at the start becomes the main focus of the movie from then, with the Decepticons, led by Megatron and the TRF trying to find anything they could at any cost. This is the basic plot around which the story runs around for some time, after which Yeager and Bumblebee’s pursuits are interrupted by an English Lord- Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), who possess a great deal of Knowledge about the Race and History of Transformers. With the help of another Transformer, Burton brings together Yeager and an Oxford Professor Viviane Wembley (Laura Haddock), a lady whose ancestry holds some great information about the treasure everyone is running after in the movie.
In case you’re wondering where’s our Hero Optimus Prime amongst all of this. Well, his journey continues from where it ended in the last movie, and he shows up later during the climax stage of the movie along with the main villain. The ending parts involve the formation of an Apocalypse, a battle to take hold of a highly powerful treasure and an attempt to save humanity, yet again.
Execution
The Last Knight, just like the past movies of the franchise, begins by giving importance to the Transformers but ends up trying to put the value of Human life above everything else. What is really annoying in this movie is the execution of things. The jump between scenes and different states of emotions isn’t smooth, and some interesting parts and changes in the emotions of the characters are clichéd and the most surprising parts of the movie come in cringe-worthy moments.
One of the stars of the movie is Bumblebee, who does have some good moments and important scenes in this movie. Regarding the acting, Anthony Hopkins, as expected of him did complete justice to his role in the movie, whereas the young Isabela Moner was really good with her acting, but her role really didn’t have anything of much importance to the story, her role, in fact, was a sort of wasted opportunity. Mark Wahlberg was impressive with his role, as his importance in this movie was elevated to a whole new level(which didn’t make much sense storywise but wasn’t bad either), and for those who loved Sam Witwicky, he does have an appearance in the movie in a weird Photograph!
Perhaps the reason for improper justice to roles and scenes could be attributed to the plot itself, which was actually lengthy, long enough that it would have needed much more than 3 hours to completely do justice with the plot. But even at a running time of 2 hours and 30 minutes. It’s a lengthy movie in terms of Hollywood standards, and if the storyline isn’t great, the action scenes could have compensated for that, which isn’t mostly true in this case. Sure, there are some good scenes here and there, but most of the part revolves around the story development (which isn’t executed really well). The audience of kids, who love actions scenes much more than anything else might have to wait and would be having some yawns and moments where they would be bored. This movie does indeed have some classic heroic moments from Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, but beyond them, other important Transformer characters haven’t been given any major attention for most of the time. The villain of this movie wasn’t given any moments to shine, and even Megatron’s role was limited and this Decepticon Leader, considered as an arch-rival to Optimus Prime didn’t have any extraordinary moments just like in the past movies. The movie ends with a pointer to the plot of the next movie in this franchise, which wasn’t really exciting, to be honest.
Verdict
The Transformers Franchise is one of the most successful movie franchises in Hollywood, and all of its movies have collected a lot of Money. But if The Last Knight is any indication, the success would be only going on a downward scale if all the movies continue to follow the same old pattern. While this movie does throw some much-needed light on the history of Transformers and their presence on Earth. It does not tell the story in a unique or exceptional way and leaves much more to be desired. The viewers might need a different perspective in the upcoming sequels of the movie if at all there is any interest remaining.
The final verdict would be this, The Last Knight would be a great movie to watch if you love the Transformers Franchise, but for those who just want to have fun watching a movie, this one won’t satisfy you. However, if you are patient enough to sit for over 2 hours, some decent moments in the movie might give you a good time.
