Movie Review - TF5 The Last Knight

['07Camaro]

My overall thoughts about this movie is similar to Gok's: It's the best of the sequels but no were near as good as the first one. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the movie

PROS:
+ Improved CGI: At least in comparison to AOE. The movie looks visually and aesthetically pleasing from most angles: establishing shots, action sequences and more. Granted, it doesn't reach DOTM levels, but it certainly does make for some satisfying eye candy.

+ Megatron with Starscream's head scene: One of my favourite scenes in the movie. The dialogue he has towards his "old, treacherous friend" kinda reminds me of the way Megatron and Starscream interacted with each other in the G1 cartoon.

+ TF1 references: As someone who got into the franchise by the 2007 movie, I really appreciated the minor references to the first one such as Sam's Ebay profile picture.

+ More transformation sequences: There were a lot of transformation sequences in this movie, probably the most I've seen in all of the movies. This is more related to the CGI, in which the textures, lighting etc. make it more enjoyable to watch. As a bonus, the deceptions don't transform by dissolving into these tiny fragments like in AOE.

+ Captain Lennox and Seymour Simmons: 2 of my favourite humans from the first one are more or less the same as they were in the previous films, which isn't a bad thing.

+ World War 2 sequence: Seperate movie staring Bumblebee and Hot Rod, anyone?

+ Anthony Hopkins: He was very fun to watch, especially when he talks about lore he hasn't even heard of before. I honestly wouldn't mind him being a prominent human character in an anthology Transformers movie.

+ Optimus kicking Megs off Cybertron: Nice homage to the '86 movie. Didn't even knew that was a reference till I got on here.

+ Barricade's knuckledusters: Glad how they changed them to "Punish" and "Enslave" instead of "Protect" and "Serve". It's just more appropriate for Barricade


CONS:

- Forced humour: Does a Transformers need to be comedy only to be considered good? I swear, there is not one scene where the writers and Michael Bay didn't place in a cringe-worthy joke. 98% of those jokes made were a complete miss. The only funny part was when no one in the theatre laughed at those jokes at all.

- Under-developed characters:: To make way for all of the exposition, the movie didn't give enough time to explain who the new characters are and how their personalities change within the events that transpired. So they all felt like lifeless action figures who I had little to no care about.

- Decepticons: They posed no imminent threat to the humans and the Autobots in this movie, but were really taking a backseat to Quintessa. Even Megatron did nothing. What's worse is that these guys have a life span of a mayfly. Onslaught legit had 5 seconds of screen time only to be killed immediately after. RIP Bayformer Combaticons At least they didn't kill off Megatron again.

- Izabella: All of this marketing centralising her and she, along with Sqweeks, were completely useless in the whole movie. If you take them out of the whole story, then I bet $50 the movie would be the exact same. This also include Cade's friend at the junkyard.

- Bumblebee vs Optimus Prime: The most anti-climatic action scene out of the movieverse, period. All of the money shots we've seen in the trailers, tv spots etc. make up the entire battle. There were little to no new scenes and the fight went on for about a minute. The whole Bumblebee's voice thing would've actually worked though...if it weren't for the fact that Bumblebee actually spoke at the end of the first one. It should've been under consideration.

- Dinobots: For having 20 minutes of screen time in AOE, I thought it was gonna be addressed in this movie....It got worse. First, where's Strafe and Scorn? Second, how do they create the Mini Dinobots? ARGH.

- Excessive Profanity: I have not seen a movie in which the characters say certain curse words so many times. For a movie who's demographic involves children, not a very good move. Even I got somewhat concerned.

QUESTIONS (oh boy...):

- How is Starscream's head intact after it was practically blown up in DOTM?
- So Optimus, how's that seed doing?
- Who is Quintessa? What's her backstory? Etc.
- How did Barricade survive the Chicago War?
- How is Galvatron now Megatron? Where did he get the new body from?
- Where did Brains go?
- Where did Wheelie come from?
- So is Drift no longer a triplechanger?
- What was the point of the McLaran?
- So Cogman is a headmaster, huh? Can I see him transform?
- Decepticons do bank robberies?
- Why did Sir Edmond shoot Megatron before standing in the open for Megs to kill him?

And that's all I gotta say about the movie. Despite the flaws it has and all of the questions I have, I had a good time watching this movie. It'd definitely be my second favourite of the bunch.

SUPER HYPED up for the BB movie now


EDIT: After seeing the movie again, I decided to change some stuff on my previous comment.

- I got rid of the Autobot development pro because I realised how stupid I was for thinking that TLK did any development on them. We still don't know a whole lot about them, and this movie didn't help AT ALL.
- I limited my Megatron pro to only talk about the scene where he holds Starscream's head, since it was my favourite Megatron moment out of the movie, and not the way the character was executed.
- Got rid of the refugee pro, realised it was the same as the other movies, another stupid comment.
- Edited the Decepticon pro but still think they were kinda useless.
- Got rid of some questions cause they were answered
- Profanity was another problem I had with the movie as well
- Added a pro in relation to Barricade

[MayzaPrime]

I thought Drift was driving the Autobot ship... thats why he wasnt in the final scene

[Handsprime]

Here's my review:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Really I don't know what to say. It has it's awesome moments (it's definitely an improvement to AOE), but it's still filled with flaws. Like how did Galvatron become Megatron? Who is Canopy and why should I care about his death? Some of the robots just appear out of nowhere and aren't mentioned again. Heck even the production of the film is flawed. What's up with the Aspect Ratio? Also at times some of the Transformers look fake and even disappear in certain shots!

However I did like the film when it had it's awesome moments. And as mentioned an improvement from AOE (which imo felt empty). I would say it's my 3rd favorite of the series (Dark of the moon is 2nd and the '07 is 1st while ROTF is 4th and AOE is 5th)

5/10

[Ralph Wiggum]

Well, I finally saw this last night at Hoyts. I watched it with my partner who is doing her masters in Medieval history and so knows the Arthurian legends back to front. So when the movie opens with "England - Dark Ages" and baysplosions rock the battlefield, we both just cracked up.

Pretty much everyone in this thread has summed up all my thoughts on the good, bad and ugly. Overall the movie is on the same level (barely above if I want to be generous) as Age of Extinction. Nowhere near the awesomeness of the very first movie. I had seriously hoped that not having Ehren Kruger writing would improve the movie, but nope.

My partner did ask though: if the knight who passed on his talisman to Cade ended up dying, then does that mean Dragonstorm is missing a piece?

[griffin]

At the end of the movie Dragonstorm was missing 4 of the 12 knights that formed him at the start of the movie... one dies with Cade and Optimus killed 3 in Merlins tomb.

[GoktimusPrime]

+ Megatron: Ok, I know Megatron hardly did anything and got his butt handed to him with ease by Optimus, but I feel like his character and personality was closer to the G1 iteration than Hugo Weaving's Meatron. Aside from the fact that he's voiced by Frank Welker, he feels closer to G1 in certain scenes.

Uh... there are so many different versions of G1 Megatron. If you mean the G1 cartoon, then that's really not the greatest version as G1 cartoon Megs was fairly ineffective. His most recurring piece of dialogue was, "Decepticons, retreat!"

For example, the scene where Megatron is holding Starscream's head, talking about how he should've been alive to witness Earth's destruction. One of my favourite scenes in th movie.

That's actually more of a reference to G2 than G1, as there was a moment where G2 Megatron looked at Bludgeon's head Hamlet style and lamented killing him for a brief moment.

+ More transformation sequences: There were a lot of transformation sequences in this movie, probably the most I've seen in all of the movies. This is more related to the CGI, in which the textures, lighting etc. make it more enjoyable to watch. As a bonus, the deceptions don't transform by dissolving into these tiny fragments like in AOE.

Yeah, but the transformations are really more morphing than proper transforming. Watch this video showing AoE Optimus Prime transforming in slow motion, and you can see the entire back half of the truck mode being swallowed up into his back! That's stupid! Compare this with this video showing Optimus Prime's wonderfully detailed transformation from the first movie. Everything goes somewhere. Okay, quasi-morphing transforming is a LOT better than "Flying Tetris" transforming, sure... but still not as good as full proper parts-shifting transformations like we saw in the first three films.

The shift towards morphing transformations was a real bone of contention for Beast Machines. Odd how there's a lot less controversy over it now.

+ Transformers as refugees: I'm kinda intrigued with this plot point. To me, it kinda has a District 9 feel to it. Nevertheless, it appeals to me how the Transformers have become apart of human society, even if they are being discriminated.

I disagree.

Firstly, the whole refugee thing was already established from ROTF, so it's not a new thing to this movie. All the new arrivals are arriving asylum seekers, and Galloway's character mentions that the Autobots are living under granted asylum and asked Optimus Prime if the Autobots would leave peacefully if this asylum were to be withdrawn.

District 9 is really more of a direct parallel with human racism, with many things mirroring how humans have treated (and continue to treat) each other IRL. In TLK all Cybertronians have been declared public enemies and are being indiscriminately hunted. Also, the Transformers are combatants. The D9 aliens were sick and starving when they arrived on Earth. Yes, both the Transformers and D9 aliens are refugees with no home to return to - but that's about where the similarity ends. Everything else about them, including the way that they are viewed and treated by humans, is completely different.

+ Slightly developed Autobots: The junkyard scenes gave us some insight on the relationship between each of the Autobots as a means of getting to know them more. Even if they tell us a little.

What insight? That the Autobots are a bunch of surly and immature children? More importantly, that scene did nothing to advance the plot. The story stalled during that scene, and any character or moment that stalls the story isn't a good thing. This is why so many Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks (and also why many G1 fans hate Wheelie and Daniel).

- Forced humour: Does a Transformers need to be comedy only to be considered good? I swear, there is not one scene where the writers and Michael Bay didn't place in a cringe-worthy joke. 98% of those jokes made were a complete miss. The only funny part was when no one in the theatre laughed at those jokes at all.

I found Merlin's comedic moment to be funny.
"I'll give up booze and gambling and wom--- I'll give up booze and gambling!" (or something like that)

- Under-developed human characters (+Quintessa): To make way for all of the exposition, the movie didn't give enough time to explain who they are and how their personalities change within the events that transpired. So they all felt like lifeless action figures who I had little to no care about.

The Transformers were never developed as characters either, and this movie is CALLED "Transformers."

- Decepticons: What did they ever do to be treated the way there were? They posed no imminent threat to the humans and the Autobots, but became simple pawns to Quintessa's plans. Even Megatron did nothing. What's worse is that these guys have a life span of a mayfly. Onslaught legit had 5 seconds of screen time only to be killed immediately after. RIP Bayformer Combaticons At least they didn't kill off Megatron again.

Disagree. The Decepticons were already imprisoned, stating that they were already dangerous dudes who'd done other stuff before. You even see some flashback scenes of some of the bad things they've done. And "Megatron did nothing"??? Seriously? What about the body count from the previous films, or the fact that Megatron brought this war to Earth. He's a war criminal!

- If Vivian Wembley were said to be the last remaining decendant of Merlin and the Witwikkans, does that mean Sam and ron Witwiky died?

Witwiccan is an order, the Order of Witwiccans. Not a family name. Sam appears to have been retroactive inducted into the Order because of his contribution to the relations between Autobots and humans. Witwicky is a Polish/Ukrainian surname whereas "Witwicca" is English, meaning, "knowledge of sorcery." So the names aren't even from the same language source despite coincidental similarity in spelling and pronunciation (we call these "false cognates" in languages).

- How does Merlin's staff have so much power? Where does it come from?

The Knights gave it to him. It's an ancient Cybertronian artifact.

- How did Cybertron get to the size of the Moon? I though it was twice the size of Earth from DOTM. Did it cyberform or something?

Bigger than Earth. But remember that Cybertron was very badly damaged when the Space Bridge closed and snapped a good chunk of the planet off. Perhaps this is all that remains - giving greater motivation to rebuild it.

But yeah, I otherwise agree with your other comments.

['07Camaro]

And "Megatron did nothing"??? Seriously? What about the body count from the previous films, or the fact that Megatron brought this war to Earth. He's a war criminal!

By Megatron not doing anything, I meant he did nothing in this film, not the previous ones. I'm aware he did many things in those movies, but this one I feel like he didn't really do anything.