OK lets just jump into this shall we. The plot: I'm not even going to attempt to explain the plot for this 2 hour plus whirlwind of CGI metal shrapnel. You may well ask why, and the answer to that is simple. Where as I did understand the basic main outline of the plot, its so unbelievably convoluted, choppy, hectic, incoherent, nonsensical etc...that its virtually impossible to explain. Its literally a review in itself, but put basically, it revolves around a mcguffin that can save Cybertron, but is also required to save Earth.
Right OK so the movie kicks off in medieval England, 484 AD. It is a time of Arthurian legend, King Arthur, Merlin, the knights of the round table...errr...transformers. Yes so we know this isn't an accurate account of ancient British history. Its a stupid fantasy movie based on (supposed) legend with large transforming alien robots. Nevertheless this opening sequence did actually look pretty good I thought. The idea of ancient transformer knights in ancient medieval Britain was actually way more interesting than the rest of the modern day set movie. I still have to point out the fact Bay and co actually cast a black actor as a British knight in this Arthurian period. That's just as ridiculous as having the fecking robots! That's the second major motion picture that has done that, what gives?!
Its at this point we learn about the ancient Cybertronian knights coming to Earth and giving Merlin this magic staff mcguffin. But this did raise questions from me initially such as, what's so special about these transformers that they are called knights? Why did they steal the staff from Cybertron? What does the staff do on Cybertron? I believe they hid the staff on Earth because Earth is in fact Unicron (an ancient enemy of Cybertron). They were trying to protect Unicron from Quintessa, a Decepticon sorceress intent on destroying Unicron to save Cybertron. So this led me to think Unicron is a goodie in this movie? Because he was originally a Decepticon. But also, wouldn't the Cybertronian knights wanna help save Cybertron also? It is their home planet after all. Confusing!!!
Its also around this point that Prime (who was spiralling frozen through space, I forget why) lands on Cybertron. But what that intended? He was drifting frozen through space, was it pure luck that he landed on Cybertron or did he put himself on a pre-set course?? Also why was he frozen? Transformers fly through space quite often it seems, or so we've seen before. Heck didn't Starscream fly to Cybertron in one movie? Why didn't he freeze up? Does Bay and co even care what they did in previous movies??? Also when Prime gets to Cybertron he questions what has happened to his homeworld. But...shouldn't he know what happened? The whole Cybertronian war thing...
K lets look at the new characters, or in this new movie, the new politically correct characters because Bay's jumpin' on bandwagons. Firstly we now have kids in this movie, some smartass retro lookin' kids. You know because Bay clearly saw Stranger Things and thought 'I can do that!'. So these kids consist of three tough streetwise kids who happen to be African American, Latino and Asian I think. And then you have the stereotypical curly haired, spectacled, nerdy white kid who's a wimp. These kids are purely in the movie to add more diversity and a kids point of view. Kinda pointless seeing as they do nothing other than get in the way.
The final kid is another tough streetwise girl who's a bit older than the others. This is Michael Bay's strong female character to appease the feminists. She's constantly crying, shouting, growling and acting as deadly serious as possible, you know...for gravitas. This was supposed to be 'empowering' for girls and was clearly pushed as such before the movies release with a string of laughable TV spots/trailers. In them the character talks to the camera as if she was doing an interview. Its shot as if the movie was an account of a real war situation or something, its pathetic. Again its all pointless because after the first ten minutes or so she's hardly in the movie.
Oh and this time there's also a little BB-8 type character in here too, you know because Bay saw 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' and thought 'I can do that!'. So voilà! Instant merchandise for the movie. What's actually amazing is how this little piece of crap is clearly a cross between BB-8 and R2-D2, like in a copyright kinda way.
Things move so thick and fast in this movie its actually hard to keep up. So I realise Transformers have kinda made Earth their new home here and presumably new ones have crash landed over time. But can someone explain where the baby Transformers came from? The baby Dinobots, I presume they were Dinobots. Then you have the same stupid crap carried over from the previous movies with Transformers having hats, chewing cigars, having coats and the Japanese Autobot having a Mercedes badge on him. That really doesn't make sense to me but whatever. But why does this Autobot have the features of a Japanese samurai? I mean...why would he? Then there's the new task force whose job is to hunt down Transformers, they are called the TRF. But...but...what happened to the last task force?
So far we've had a plot that started in the dark ages of England with various characters. It then fast forwards to our present day and a US military point of view; from faceless characters that spend the entire runtime in offices behind computers (or John Tururro on the phone the entire time). It then switches to a children's point of view for literally one action scene before then jumping onto our main protagonists point of view (Mark Wahlberg). This is all in the space of the first 30 minute or so, and we haven't even be introduced to all the characters yet either!
Despite all the obvious pandering and stealing of ideas, Bay still manages to toss countless more overused and unoriginal ideas into the mix. Outta nowhere we get a calling card sequence for some Decepticons; you know when they stick the characters name up on the screen along with some rock music. Its been done to death in loads of movies and can be effective, but here it looks completely out of place and a desperate attempt at riding the coattails of some recent blockbusters. So we get a team of nasty Decepticons that are so badass they required this calling card sequence to showcase their badass names. Yet despite their gangsta speech patterns and bling, these guys get killed off very quickly which kinda makes you wonder why they were introduced in the first place. Next!
Oh my God I could spend the rest of this month writing about this movie and its bollocks. Anthony Hopkins character apparently lives in a huge castle full of ancient artifacts that must be worth millions altogether, not including the castle itself! We get a sequence showing the Autobots helping the allies fight against the Nazi's (wouldn't both world wars have ended pretty quickly with Autobots helping?). There's a high speed chase through Westminster in super performance cars which, if you know London, is a complete joke. Add to that the fact the characters jump from one supercar to another with ease. This all ends with Hopkins, Wahlberg and co stealing British submarine the HMS Alliance (yes indeed!). Would a defunct WWII submarine being used as a museum since 1981 even run anymore? Oh its a Transformer too, of course it is (he says cackling insanely to himself). I also don't think a submarine of that type and age (or any) would have large windows like this one apparently does. Naturally the TRF have their own sub it seems, a regular fecking G.I. Joe unit these guys.
They then discover the sunken alien ship which no one has ever stumbled across before up to this point apparently. Unsure as to where this was located, I guess the Atlantic somewhere but at this point I gave up even wondering because it could have been anywhere lets face it. Its around this time the movie was heading well north of the standard runtime for a crappy movie of this caliber. As the action pointed towards Stonehenge it slowly became more and more convoluted, nigh unwatchable. There are battles kicking off everywhere as Cybertron attaches itself to Earth, which you'd think would cause irreversible damage to our planet but whatever. The goodies fight the baddies, errr...some are defeated, some are killed...I think. The talisman mcguffin is revealed and stops the destruction of Earth, whilst also leaving Cybertron perfectly OK as well. So essentially what was all the fuss about?
In all my days I've never seen such a convoluted mess, which is supposed to be for kids...isn't it?? Jesus fecking Christ it was a chore to get through this; I almost gave up on a few occasions because I was so bored and ultimately confused. Apart from the nonsensical plot and film length, the editing is terrible. Jumping all over the place in a blur of nonstop action (what's new). The aspect ratio is also bouncing around all over the shop. There are multiple characters in here that needn't be, they are literally not required (both human and Transformer). Of course you have all the usual Bayisms we've all come to expect; I don't even need to list them because you know exactly what I'm talking about. Sure it all looks super slick and glossy, but again we've all come to expect that, that no longer holds any weight. Style over substance is an understatement! But we all know that now. It is however ironic that the stupidest part of the movie (the medieval opening), was by far the most intriguing.
If this legendary 80's franchise is to have any kind of future at all, it needs to be completely rebooted. Possibly in animated form, and probably going back to the classic original animated designs. In turn, any and all knowledge of these Bayformer movies should be erased from human history.
3/10
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