The Last Knight is a bold move on Hasbro's part; it's the first step in bringing Transformers into a broader "cinematic universe", with Transformers movies due out every year for at least the next two years after this movie. To accomplish this herculean task, Ehren Kreuger-- the writer of part of Transformers 2, 3, and 4--was kicked out and a whole lot of writers were brought in for a big "brainstorming session" to help set up this broader universe, many of these writers having written many critically acclaimed films. Although I was never one that bought into the notion that Transformers (particularly 2 through 4) were garbage-- as can be obviously seen from my scores for the previous movies (though if I didn't have a policy of not "re-reviewing" things, my score for Revenge of the Fallen would have been noticeably lower)-- critical reception for them was undeniably awful, and this was likely the reason for the change-up in writers. It brought up the hopes somewhat of a lot of disenfranchised Transformers fans who didn't like the previous 3 (or 4) movies and were hoping for some "fresh blood", so to speak. Unfortunately, this "writers' room" ends up being this film's biggest weakness.
    Unlike some of the previous movies, where it felt like certain aspects were dragged out (most notably 20-30 minutes of Age of Extinction), The Last Knight as a whole feels cramped. Entire plots are introduced (and some, subsequently forgotten) in a matter of seconds. The Last Knight still feels like a Michael Bay film-- which it is-- but the tone feels different as a result. There are a LOT of REALLY good ideas, either completely original or borrowed from previous mythology. For example-- Unicron being Earth? Awesome idea taken from Transformers: Prime. Quintessa "the mad goddess" wanting to destroy Earth and thus Unicron? Great. Optimus Prime turning into Nemesis Prime? About time! A broken, shattered Cybertron colliding into Earth? Talk about upping the scale of destruction! Transformers hanging out in a junkyard to blend in? A great idea taken right from the Robots in Disguise TV show! Unfortunately, most of these either last a relatively short period of the movie or are brought in with little explanation. Unicron is never adequately explained beyond being Earth (for the average audience member-- what, exactly, IS Unicron? What are with all these horns coming out of the ground all over the Earth? Why is he apparently Cybertron's "worst enemy"? People who didn't watch the original '86 animated movie will likely never understand these important plot points). Optimus Prime becoming "Nemesis Prime" was the focus of nearly all of the trailers, but he actually is only shown as being evil and attacking Bumblebee before "snapping out of it" about 10-15 minutes later. (Many of the trailer shots actually doctored Optimus' eyes to look purple, when in actuality in the movie they're blue, to make it appear that Nemesis Prime was in more of the movie then he was.) Cogman is namedropped as being a "Headmaster" but he never actually turns into the head of a Transformer! You're a Headmaster, dude-- headmast! (Something was definitely cut here, as Cogman's mainline toy is a Headmaster, and a Decepticon toy for the movie has a removable head with a port in it for Cogman's head to fit into-- but Cogman never takes over any 'Con, much less this particular one, in the movie.)
    One specific example will perfectly explain my frustration here. My favorite segment in the movie is when Megatron meets with TRF (Transformers, as opposed to the last movie, are now EVERYWHERE on Earth, and TRF is sort of a UN-style international organizational response to get them off our planet and eliminate them-- think Cemetary Wind from the last movie, but on a much larger, populace-approved scale). In exchange for his help in tracking down Cade Yeager (who is a wanted criminal for sheltering Transformers at this point), Megatron wants some of his Decepticons released from "Transformer prison". What follows is a very well-done, semi-comical "Suicide-Squad"-style of introducing several new Decepticons, complete with freeze-frames with their names on screen when the Decepticon is introduced, and a bit of banter and one-liners as each former prisoner is introduced. Alright, so now Megatron has a posse! A bunch of Decepticons beyond Megatron and Starscream that now have some personality in the movie-verse! Except... all but one of them are killed off very quickly in the first battle they're in. Such a good idea! But then all its potential, wasted. I was SO disappointed, particularly since I'm a Decepticon fan more than an Autobot fan.
    My biggest issues with this movie, though, are the HUGE plot holes and inconsistencies with previous movies. There was the occasional plot hole or inconsistency in the previous movies, sure, but they were largely minor and overlooked. The ones in this movie are very prevalent and vital to the story. For example, Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins' character) takes us through the "real" history of the Transformers-- we see photos of Ironhide leading soldiers in WWI or WWII... eeeexcept Ironhide very explicitly landed on Earth in TF1. An ancient statue is shown of Optimus Prime-- in his CURRENT form, not his original trilogy form, not to mention this also has the same continuity issue as with TF1. The Allspark has been completely abandoned in terms of being referred to-- if it created the Transformers, what was Quintessa's role? Were the TFs created by the Allspark or Quintessa? Were Optimus and the Knights "specially created" somehow? Additionally, Optimus lands on Cybertron to see his home planet in ruins and is furious and asks Quintessa what happened-- uh, Optimus? Remember in Dark of the Moon where you stopped the transportation of your home planet into our solar system mid-way and the entire thing collapsed in on itself? You should be surprised there's a Cybertron left at all! There's also a big deal about a junk dealer finally selling Cade a new voice box for Bumblebee, which is installed-- only for it to be comically revealed that it's Siri, which Bumblebee angrily tears out of his throat. Later, Bumblebee actually talks to Nemesis Prime when he's being attacked-- that is, in fact, what snaps Nemesis Prime back to Optimus Prime! But how did Bumblebee get his voice back again? And then later he goes back to radio clips for talking, only to use his own voice again twice more in the finale (and it's not Mark Ryan's voice this time, but a different, more echo-y voice). Another oddity about this is that Optimus Prime mentions that he hasn't heard Bumblebee talk since back during their Cybertron days-- but Bumblebee DID talk, near the end of the first movie! No explanation is given about why Galvatron from the last movie is now calling himself Megatron again, or the complete re-design with an alien aircraft mode, or how he knows about Quintessa's plans. (Fans have certainly inferred some good explanations, but again-- we're left to assume too much in this movie.) The Dinobots-- which were quite a mystery in the last movie-- are also basically all but abandoned in this movie. I mentioned in my review for Age of Extinction that there was lot to be revealed about the Dinobots-- how they sort of came out of nowhere in the last movie, and that their origins would probably be explored in the next movie, and if they weren't that I'd dock points on the plot for THAT movie. Well, Grimlock's in a few minor scenes in the first third or so of the movie, Slug appears VERY briefly, and Scorn and Strafe are nowhere to be seen-- and none of them even transform from dino mode! Given that this whole plot centered around the Knights of Cybertron, and they were said to be legendary knights (indeed, all of their robot modes are highly based on medieval knight designs), you'd THINK they'd play a fairly sizeable role in this movie, but nope. We actually get a little MORE screentime with "mini-Dinobot" versions-- about a foot tall or so-- of a metallic t-rex, triceratops, and pterodactyl (this one without two heads). They don't talk either, and there's no explanation for their existence (though in this case, I'm not sure I'd WANT an explanation about how there got to be mini-Dinobots). This isn't even a complete list, but you get the idea.

    Additionally, after a nearly complete absence from Age of Extinction, the awkward and/or crude humor is back. There are scenes-- both of which are entirely too long-- that actually focus on Cade Yeager's lack of a sex life, and another where-- as female character/love interest Vivian Wembley watches-- the talisman he's been gifted with crawls around his arm, his stomach, and... right down his pants. Between his legs. And they carry on a short conversation about it, which is absolutely cringeworthy. (On a side note, the Cade/Vivian romance subplot is really forced, even by action movie standards.) There's also far more cursing than I remember from any of the previous four movies-- in many scenes, "s**t" is said pretty much every other sentence. And Sqweeks-- the kid-friendly, R2-D2-like character-- is actually the one who drops the sole f-bomb in the movie. I get it, you want a little bit of cursing to "edge it up" a bit for that PG-13 rating, but it's really prevalent in this movie and bothers me, particularly since at least nominally this movie is going to have kids watching it.
    However, taking into account this long list of negatives, that's not to say that there's nothing great about this movie beyond wasted good ideas. There's still quite a lot to be enjoyed. In keeping with AoE, most of the robots have a pretty good amount of characterization. Hound is back with his one-liners and love for violence, Drift continues to be bipolar and go from peaceful and tranquil to a killer in a split-second, Crosshairs continues to be the "cool guy" who talks smack... they all still shine quite well in this movie, with some good lines. Newcomer Hot Rod is a joy of character, being rather frustrated that he has a French accent and can't get rid of it (a quite funny moment when he admits it), as well as a fun "slow-time gun" that makes for some fun twists on action sequences, even if he doesn't use it enough, given how powerful it is. The biggest standout, though, is Cogman, who tries to be Sir Edmund Burton's loyal butler but ends up "glitching" now and then and getting overly aggressive, and he also has quite a few comical bits, a few even fourth-wall-breaking. Barricade finally has a decent number of lines, though oddly he's the exception here-- his lines are mostly straightforward, he's your typical "Decepticon subordinate" and not much more than that. (Sqweeks, admittedly, I did not like, since he only said a few garbled Spanish words, beyond the aforementioned f-bomb, and only did one thing of note the entire movie.) Nearly all of the Transformers that do transform transform on-screen as well, something that's been noticeably lacking here and there in the last few movies.
    The actors are all pretty solid as well-- from Mark Wahlberg's Cade Yeager to Laura Haddock's Vivian Wembley to Isabella Moner's... Izabella... to (of course) Anthony Hopkins' Sir Edmund Burton to lesser characters, they all give pretty good, believable emotion when called for, if not necessarily Oscar-worthy. Usually there's a "weak link" of a main actor in these movies, but not this one. Seeing some of the old cast return from the original trilogy-- such as Agent Simmons and William Lennox-- is also a joy. The music score was quite good, as usual, though it didn't have quite as many stand-out moments as the previous movies.
    The visuals, as usual, are amazing, with the Transformers looking as real as they've ever been, and the ruins of Cybertron looking delightfully creepy and ancient. The finale-- where there's a big excursion by the TRF, Vivian Wembley, Cade Yeager, and the Autobots into the upper atmosphere to try to shut down Cybertron as it collides with Earth-- is absolutely mind-blowing in how incredible it looks, and this is even by Transformers standards. Having all this shoot-em-up action happening on a large section of the planet swinging around high in the atmosphere-- with many other sections of the ruins of Cybertron swinging around it-- is REALLY something else, and so realistic I actually got just a tad sick the first time seeing it even in 2D! There's also an extended falling sequence as a broken-off section of Cybertron that many characters are in plummets back way down towards the Earth, essentially creating a zero-g envrionment for a while-- and inside that broken-off section, a fight still takes place. It's utterly insane and just a huge adrenaline rush, the way the zero-g environment affects the fight. I would actually consider this the best, most epic finale of all of the movies, even if the end result is that Cybertron is basically connected to Earth at the end. I know we aren't supposed to think too hard about physics in Transformers, but the idea of two similarly-sized planets just hanging out literally right next to each other without catastrophic effects on the Earth is a bit hard to overlook. The setup for the TF6 is also very well-done-- I have no doubt Unicron will be front-and-center in the next proper sequel (after the planned Bumblebee movie in 2018), and the way the post-credits sequence starts to set it up is quite creepy and leaves me anxious to see how it unfolds.

    Still, overall The Last Knight was a pretty substantial disappointment for me. The overly crowded plot, the HUGE plot holes and inconsistencies between this movie and the previous movies, the near-constant cursing, and having so many great ideas abruptly dropped makes this my least favorite live-action Transformers movie by a fairly substantial margin. What's even more maddening about it is that, properly done, this could have been 2 or 3 GREAT movies, if the pacing and plot points were done right. I hope the writers' room, producers, and director can get their act together for TF6-- if they do, it'll surely be one to remember.

Plot: 7/20
Characterization: 8/10
Dialogue: 9/15
Action: 21/20
Humor: 10/15
CGI: 14/10
Musical Score: 9/10

Overall Rating: 78/100 Good

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