STORY: 1600 years ago, the first Transformer on Earth gave a wizard a wand to defeat evil. Cut to present day, the ultimate evil plans to return for the wand, unbeknownst to humans and other Transformers who are fighting their own war.
REVIEW: Harriet Tubman — the iconic abolitionist who rescued slaves, later worked with the suffragettes, and will be the first woman to appear on American currency — was part of a secret society that knew about the existence of Transformers on Earth. Or so this movie atrociously suggests.
Director Michael Bay breaches the limits of farfetchedness with this entrant in the Transformers franchise. And that odd Harriet Tubman anecdote is the least ridiculous thing in its mythology.
Transformers, we’re told, helped King Arthur in his battles. His wizard, Merlin, was handed a magical staff by a Transformer, and the staff is the key to all creation on the planet of Cybertron. As Cybertron begins to decay, an evil queen leads it closer to Earth to attain the staff. Cade (Wahlberg), is the titular last knight who can stop the planets from colliding, and Vivian (Haddock) is the last surviving descendent of Merlin, who can find and yield the staff.
If you thought that was all too convoluted, don’t worry, Mark Wahlberg probably thinks so too. His disinterest in the movie’s proceedings is almost visible on his face. Haddock is restricted to running in pretty clothes, while Anthony Hopkins — his presence here is as surprising as the movie is not — manages to bring a morsel of intrigue with his part.
By now, the world has accepted the Transformers movies to be unabashedly mindless, full of VFX explosions, goofy bro-humour and stereotypical female characters. In that sense, this movie delivers. It is 154 minutes of sensory overload. The most watchable bits have Jim Carter voicing Cogman, who is a cross between Star Wars’ C-3PO and Beauty And The Beast’s Cogsworth. Much more of Cogman’s wit and humour suffused with the deafening roar of car-wars would have made this a tad more watchable.
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