 Title: Transformers: The Last Knight Director: Michael Bay Studio: Paramount Pictures Genre(s): Action Rated: PG-13 (For violence and intense sequences of sci-fi action, language, and some innuendo) |
As the typical protagonist of a summer blockbuster to a
sequel says, “here we go again!” It is
another year, another summer, and another ‘Transformers’ movie directed by
Michael Bay. I actually wrote a review
of the movie before I saw it. Inspired
by a video I saw of Nostalgia Critic, he decided to review the film before it
came out to see if it was as predictably brainless and uninspired as all the
previous films. I tried a similar thing,
but found the final product to be so much worse than I could have possibly
imagined, that I decided to scrap it and write this “proper” review
instead. God knows what a proper review
for a movie like this read, but I’m going to try anyway. It may be more effort than anything the movie
threw at me, but someone needs to try to do something just a little bit
original with all this, so the critic may as well try to make his review
entertaining (even if the movie isn’t).
This may prove to be an especially arduous task because the
amount of mind-numbing violence that pierces the screen every five to ten
seconds kept hypnotizing me to a state of being in a daze for most of the
almost three hour running time. I recall
there were robots, shooting, robots, shooting, one of the Transformers sounded
like John Goodman, then there was more shooting. It was a cycle that repeated itself until it
had no meaning. That said, when the
cycle broke long enough so Sir Anthony Hopkins could explain the history of how
King Arthur was real, how Merlin has a line of descendants who were guarding
secrets of the Transformers like Dan Brown was hiding secrets of Leonardo
DaVinci, I just nodded in frustration and muttered “ah, go back to shooting the
robots” under my breath. I suppose that
means the movie can’t win.
When it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing by giving the
audience pure action, it’s monotonous.
When it attempts to develop the story and characters, it’s too silly to
take seriously. The question then, I
suppose, is what is the solution? For me
the solution was pretty simple: Stop after the first one. Really, there was only enough premium gas for
these movies to run smoothly for one outing, and to keep filling them up would
be to fill them up with Arco gas and still expect them to perform street
racing. It’s too late to pull that card
though, and we are where we are, and as long as there is money to be made
Paramount will keep revving these things up. So, what can they do going forward? The first suggestion I would make is to fire
Michael Bay. He may have gotten this
thing off the ground, but like Uber, he eventually became tone def to all the
problems of the franchise, and bringing in a new director with a new vision
will go a long way towards fixing things.
The second thing I would recommend is to not overplay the
action. Yes, people come for the robots,
but they don’t have an impact when they are shooting non-stop. Introduce a plot, setup a conflict, and
slowly unroll it until it is time to have a climax at the end. Great movies are like great sex: You don’t
want to climax too early or else the experience isn’t fulfilling, it is merely
exhausting. Finally, I would ditch the
PG-13 rating and embrace what these movies really are: Kids films. They are made for kids, written for kids, and
yet they are too violent for kids. That
last part may be a personal issue I have, but I see no reason something this
dumb needs to be this edgy. Not that any
of this will make a difference.
Audiences have made these movies successful for all these years and they
don’t seem interested in changing now.
Although, I should mention I wrote this review a little
late, which means the movie is already out in theaters by the time of
publication, and the box office is showing signs of a series that has
overstayed its welcome. Considering the
love the series has I suspect this has more to do with the quality of the
product than the product itself. “Transformers:
The Last Knight” is the result of a corporate, movie making machine that has
veered wildly out of control and needs a culture change. But there’s money to be made, and people are
still familiar with the brand, which means it’s not too late to pull the franchise
out of the hole. It worked for the ‘Fast
and the Furious’ franchise and it can work here. And trust me: I REALLY want to get to the
point where I no longer should say, “here we go again!”
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is the usual amount of robot violence, gunplay, and fourth grade swearing. Recommended for ages 12 and up.
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