‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ review: Flashy garbage

Oggs Cruz

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‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ review: Flashy garbage
Movie critic Oggs Cruz gives his take on the 5th installment of the film

Be warned. Be very warned. 

Transformers: The Last Knight, the 5th movie in the inexplicably lucrative franchise inspired from Hasbro’s popular line of toy robots from the 80’s, is almost 3 excruciating hours of chaos.

 

Disdain for logic, sense and structure

Isabela Moner plays Izabella in 'Transformers: The Last Knight.' Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

 

Mind you, I am not talking about spectacular chaos which director Michael Bay has become famous for after movies like Bad Boys (1995), The Rock (1996), and Armageddon (1998) that capitalized on explosions and other forms of wanton for entertainment. I am talking about real chaos, the kind that can only leave you questioning how such a movie even got made in the first place with its vehement disdain for logic, sense and structure.

The unnecessarily intricate story involves Merlin, warring robots, and a slew of human characters who for the fifth time need to save the world from being destroyed. 

Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

It stars Mark Wahlberg as the somewhat charismatic hero whose built-in working class charms relieve Bay and his team of screenwriters from the duty of characterization. There’s also Laura Haddock who plays the requisite eye candy whose only role is to provide the movie with an opportunity to showcase female empowerment except that it’s not because she still ends up with her beliefs disproved and ogling at Wahlberg’s muscles. 

Anthony Hopkins, who plays the bored Brit who connects all the robots with the rest of human history, grants The Last Knight its most enjoyable scene involving a robot poking fun at the ridiculous seriousness of everyone with dramatic musical cues. Sadly, the movie does not sustain that scene’s self-deprecating tone and still ends up grossly self-important with its put-on slogans about bravery as delivered with authority by Optimus Prime, voiced by Peter Cullen.

 

  

 

Extravaganza of color and noise 

Screengrab from YouTube/ Transformers: The Last Knight

The easiest thing for a lazy and gutless critic who wants to be spared from the sure ire of Bay and the toy brand’s fans to do is to laud The Last Knight for its special effects, the overabundance of which makes me wonder if I should even use the adjective special to describe the movie’s use digital wizardry.

Sure, Bay’s movie is an extravaganza of all sorts of eye-straining colors and ear-demolishing noise. However, it is also that overreliance on spectacle-driven clutter that makes it so glaringly tiresome. The movie is so bereft of any goal other than to bombard its audience with disjointed scenes of conflagration and metal crashing into each other that it has become a real affront to the senses, an experience that is no longer pleasurable.

The Last Knight represents everything that is wrong with Hollywood today. Its knowledge of the fact that no matter how soulless and senseless it is, audiences will lap it up, ensuring the continuation of the franchise has given Bay a limitless pass for producing garbage, reinforces mediocrity and disregard for authentic creativity.

 

Land of the dead 

Grimlock in 'Transformers: The Lat Knight.' Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures

While watching the movie, I was briefly reminded of George Romero’s Land of the Dead and its horde of ghouls stopping from their routine hunt for living flesh for a mind-numbing view of fireworks in the sky.

Has Hollywood stooped that low to regard the public as nothing more than zombies with this offering that is essentially just a montage of jarring visuals and sounds that are strung together by a plot that is barely there? – Rappler.com

 

Francis Joseph Cruz litigates for a living and writes about cinema for fun. The first Filipino movie he saw in the theaters was Carlo J. Caparas’ ‘Tirad Pass.’ Since then, he’s been on a mission to find better memories with Philippine cinema. 

  

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