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After the fourth "Transformers" movie, "Transformers: Age of Extinction," came out in 2014, director Michael Bay opined that "they should make it mandatory for reviewers that they sit in the audiences — just be themselves surrounded by a real audience."
Paramount made good on Bay's demand by not holding advance screenings for the franchise's fifth installment, "Transformers: The Last Knight." So your friendly neighborhood movie critic bought a ticket Tuesday night, just like everybody else, to see what Bay hath wrought this time.
Sure enough, "Transformers: The Last Knight" was not made for critics, or any viewer who likes movies to make sense or show signs of artistic genius. What's worse is that this loud, chaotic, bruising sensory assault of a movie wasn't getting the fans cheering, either.
The story starts in the Dark Ages, with King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) and his knights facing defeat from the catapult-wielding Saxons. Their only hope is the wizard Merlin (Stanley Tucci in a glorified cameo), who has a secret weapon — a magical staff bestowed on him by a Transformer whose ship crashed on Earth.
Flash-forward to today, when our hero, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) — inventor and friend of the missing Optimus Prime (still voiced by Peter Cullen) — is a fugitive, hunted by the same paramilitary unit, the TRF, that seeks the outlawed Transformers. Cade finds an ancient Transformer, who with his dying breath copies the origin story of "Green Lantern" and gives Cade a magical talisman.
Soon the talisman is protecting Cade and drawing him to England. He meets Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), last vestige of a secret order that protects Merlin's staff. Sir Edmund drops a ton of exposition to explain King Arthur's connection to the cosmic battle between the friendly Autobots and the evil Decepticons — and Cade's role in preventing a collision between their worlds that will destroy Earth. Cade also meets and argues with Viviane Wembley (Laura Haddock), an Oxford historian whose tie to Merlin is also key to saving Earth.
Leading an army that includes four credited screenwriters and six film editors, Bay tosses together an indigestible stew of mythologies to set up the mighty confrontation between clanking metal robots and the humans foolhardy enough to get in the middle of it. It's clear Bay doesn't give a thought to the story and sees it merely as a clothesline on which to hang his massively ridiculous action sequences.
At every turn, he throws in confounding juvenile touches. He brings back John Turturro's crazy character, inexplicably calling in plot points from Havana. He turns the TRF from enemy to ally at will. He fetishizes military hardware in ways not even "Top Gun" imagined. And he cajoles Sir Anthony Hopkins to utter the words "bitchin' ride."
And he does it all without giving viewers — critics or fans — a moment to laugh, or to breathe, as the onslaught of brutal computer effects and barrage of sound hits us for an unrelenting 2 ½ hours.
If not for fans, then whom was "Transformers: The Last Knight" made for? Shareholders, mostly — the people who have a brand to market and depend on revenue from ancillary products, from the toys that will spring from the movie's characters or the corporate logos displayed on billboard-size screens. This is a movie that looks terrible on screen, but good on a quarterly report.
Twitter: @moviecricket —
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'Transformers: The Last Knight'
Michael Bay's fifth installment of the franchise is a nonstop assault to the senses that is less than meets the eye.
Where • Theaters everywhere.
When • Opens Wednesday, June 21.
Rating • PG-13 for violence and intense sequences of sci-fi action, language and some innuendo.
Running time • 149 minutes.