Yesterday I started re-watching the movie for the purposes of reviewing (rather than just watching then posting afterthoughts). I survived through the first half before my brain rebelled and I stopped after that. So I'll review the other 1.5h of this movie later. Some of these points have certainly been mentioned in other posts, but anyway, here's my review on Hour 1:

  • Mythological Accuracy: Sir Moriaen
    The film depicts one of Arthur's Knights being portrayed by a black actor. This is accurate to the original legend of King Arthur which describes Sir Moriaen as being a dark-skinned Moor, as his mother was a Moorish princess and his father was white (Sir Aglovale de Galis) and also a knight of the round table. Thus Moriaen is considered nobility by birthright. Now people might argue that having a black noble in 5th Century England is nigh-impossible, but as I said, it's not necessarily historically accurate but mythologically accurate, according to Arthurian canon. Because the story of Arthur itself is pretty much more fiction than fact anyway. But speaking of historical inaccuracies...

  • The invading Anglos are wearing spiked and horned helmets and armour. As we all know, this was something that 19th Century opera performers invented to make Viking operas look more dramatic. In reality, Germanic warriors never had spiked or horned helmets or armour. Conversely Arthur's knights aren't even wearing helmets.
    It seems to be a cheap ploy to make the invaders look inhuman by covering their faces but make Arthur's knights look more 'heroic' by having their faces uncovered. Speaking of armour, Arthur's knights are wearing solid plated breastplates... 1000 years too soon!
    But considering that the breastplates glow with blue energy when Merlin activates Quintessa's staff, it's safe to say that the armour given to Arthur and his knights were crafted by Cybertronians so okay, I can let that slide.

  • Arthur and his knights have a symbol - a circle with a perfectly symmetrical cross in the centre. This sorta looks like a Celtic cross, which would make sense as the Celts were already Christianised by the 5th Century and the invading Anglos would've still been Pagan - but the cross is the wrong shape. It should be more of a 十 rather than a ＋ (i.e. the vertical line should be longer than the horizontal). But we also see this cross on the Talisman of Iacon and Cade's sword. So is this actually a Celtic cross or a Cybertronian (Iaconian?) symbol which is coincidentally cross-shaped?
    The latter makes more sense - I'd say it's an Iaconian cross. Merlin likely allowed Arthur and his knights to believe that it was a Celtic cross, which would also make sense for him because unless Merlin convinced Arthur that his "magics" came from God, then he would've likely been executed for sorcery. But then we also see some of the Knights doubting Merlin (which in turn means that they'd be doubting god - unless they're doubting Merlin's ability to channel god's power... gah, so much of this doesn't make sense!).

  • The Anglos are using counterweight trebuchets. 700 years before it would be invented! Yes, the Chinese had trebuchets since the fourth century B.C.E., but: a) those were traction trebuchets, not counterweight trebuchets, and b) this story is set in 5th Century England, not China!

  • Their trebuchets are also launching flaming spiked balls. It's true that siege engines did launch thermal projectiles, but in this period I think that the projectiles themselves might have been more likely to be clay earthen pots filled with combustible materials. Iron-cast vessels did come along later,
    but I suspect that the 5th century would've been too early. Also... in the movie they explode! Okay... if this battle were happening in the Eastern Roman Empire, then sure, I could believe that they would've exploded magnificently because the Byzantines made use of Greek fire. But in other parts of the world outside of the Eastern Rome and Greece? Uh...
    NO. This is because the Greeks and Byzantines fiercely guarded the secret of making Greek fire. It was so well protected that even now nobody knows how Greek fire was made! The Ancient Greeks and Byzantines took the secret of Greek fire to their graves. The closest thing we have now to Greek fire is napalm.

  • Why does the dragon need Merlin to command it with the staff? We later see Dragonstorm operating independently, even fighting against Quintessa's forces when she possessed the staff.

  • Why is there a Cybertronian Knight in Chicago?

  • Speaking of the Chicago scene -- those kids. Utterly annoying and completely useless. They did NOT need to be in this film at all. And they were behaving so unrealistically. You have big drone robots blowing stuff up around you, but yeah, one of them feels the need to flirt with the girl and another kid feels the need to make smart-alec quips. They're not brave, they're stupid! And they swear a lot for no apparent reason.

  • That Bumblebee falling apart and fighting TRF soldiers while reassembling scene... has got to be one of the stupidest fight scenes in cinematic history. I could literally write an entire chapter on how this makes no sense. And later one after Bumblebee has finished fighting Nemesis Prime, we see Bumblebee's parts returning to him as he puts himself back together! Okay, so this means that he always has this ability... so why didn't he use it against Nemesis Prime? Like when he has him pinned, why not disassemble and reassemble? Cos that'd make it impossible for Nemesis Prime to ever immobilise you - it's a potentially really useful ability. Why didn't Bumblebee use this ability at the ignition engine and then use his parts to collectively take out that gun emplacement (which Sqweeks ultimately takes out)? And when the TRF and MI6 guys came to Folgarn castle. And why hasn't Bumblebee ever used this ability before in previous movies?!??! This makes no sense!

  • Is Lennox TRF or US Army? He wears both uniforms in different scenes.
    What is the chain of command between TRF and the Army? Cos they often bicker like children... which doesn't bloody happen in the military or a military alliance.

  • How the hell is Barricade alive again? We saw Bumblebee brutally kill him in Dark of the Moon!

  • Why are Megatron and Barricade having a private conversation in English? I can believe that they didn't know that the humans were listening in - that's fine. But why are they speaking in English with each other? For whose benefit are they doing that for? And we can't even suspend disbelief that it's simply Decepticonese translated for the audience as English because the spying humans can understand every single word!
    Don't tell me that their surveillance equipment is built with a Star Trek Universal Translator or the Tardis' translation matrix! Makes no sense!

  • Optimus Prime floating in space covered in ice. Where did the ice come from? Also, if he's run out of power, how does he miraculously power up again after crashing on Cybertron? How is it that he just casually gets up and walks away from that crater too (yet he's vulnerable to punches and kicks in a fight)? In previous films we know that Cybertronians have atmospheric entry modes to protect them upon crash landings, like Optimus Prime's Rock Lord mode. But here Optimus Prime simply crashes onto Cybertron's surface in robot mode! And he appears to be hot which implies that Cybertron has some atmosphere. Also...

  • How does Cybertron have greenery?

  • Why is Optimus Prime so shocked at the devastation on Cybertron?
    He was the one who did it when he thwarted Sentinel Prime and Megatron's plan of space-bridging Cybertron to Earth! He chose to sacrifice Cybertron to save Earth... so why is he all surprised that Cybertron is damaged and then why does he go all angry at Quintessa and blaming her for what's happened?!? Is Optimus Prime bi-polar?!

  • Vivienne falls off her horse during a game of polo and nobody cares.
    Whiplash? Concussion? Who cares?!

  • Vivienne swears while talking about Arthurian legend to a group of students. *sigh* She's meant to be a highly intelligent professor but she needs to resort to swearing to engage her students. *facepalm* Continuing Revenge of the Fallen's time-honoured tradition of Let's Make University Academics Creepy!

  • That junkyard scene. It reminds me of the pod race in The Phantom Menace - yes, it serves a purpose, but it should be MUCH MUCH MUCH shorter. And there's a lot of useless stuff that should've been omitted like:
    * Grimlock munching on Chief Sherman's cruiser
    * The baby Dinobots
    * The childish squabbling between the Autobots

  • Mmmm... casual racism...
    * Daytrader telling Drift that his Japanese accent is unintelligible. Later in the film Vivienne struggles to understand Hot Rod's French accent and Hot Rod laments about how he hates his accent but can't get rid of it. Cos yeah, making fun of foreign accents is funny now!
    * Cade referring to Izabella as "Little J-Lo." Right up there with calling Shane "Lucky Charms." It's as if he can't get by meeting anyone of an ethnic minority without giving them an ethnic nickname. Although I do like how Chief Sherman totally shot him down with this ("But coming from you it sounds vaguely racist").

  • Why is the NASA guy so dismissive of the JPL guy when discussing Earth's imminent doom? Don't bore me with this geek crap, I've got lunch! It makes... no sense...

  • Apparently Hound doesn't know the difference between an adjective and and adverb. Neither does Izabella, but she's been homeless and probably out of school since she was 8 years old so it's understandable. Hound is an advanced alien robot who downloaded Earth's languages from the internet.
    Now you could argue that the internet is loaded with grammatical inaccuracies and that a computer brain might mistake it for correct grammar... might would be true for an artificial intelligence. But the Transformers aren't artificially intelligent. They are a fully sentient and sapient species who should and would be able to detect and determine errors in natural language. Okay, they might occasionally make a few mistakes as linguistic faux pas, and we saw this in the first movie when Optimus Prime used the common online saying of, "My bad." But that's a clever nuanced thing... this isn't... it's just illiteracy.

  • Lennox tells one of the lawyers, "You know who they always kill firsT?
    Lawyers." Now why would you say this?!? Their mission is to negotiate a deal with Megatron. Why mentally unhinge one of your major players just prior to these negotiations? She needs your emotional support if anything!

  • "Dreadbot" ←just a stupid name. Feels like a working name that they were using which was meant to be replaced with something better but it never happened. Cos in ROTF Scavenger was called Wheelbot and Rampage is Skipjack - and both are listed as such in the credits. But at least neither of them were referred to by those names in the film itself. Here we hear Megatron saying, "Dreadbot" and his name appears in text on screen. It sounds so... PlaySkool. In a movie chock full of swearing.

  • So Berserker doesn't get released which means he doesn't make much of an appearance in this film... yet characters like Mohawk and Onslaught,
    who do get released and make a more prominent appearance, have no toys?!? :/ Haaasssbbbbrroooooo!

  • Cade and Izabella replace Bumblebee's voice module from his "mouth"
    (what luck that Daytrader was able to find another voice module in the exact same shape and size as Bumblebee's mouthpiece! What are the odds of that?!) yet we see Bumblebee remove it from his throat. Also in the first movie Ratchet zaps Bumblebee's throat when he talks about how he lost his voice. If anything you'd think that the vocal circuit would be an internal organ thing like transformation cogs etc.

  • Dinobots bursting out of the ground... cos... uh... yeeeaaah

  • After the Dinobots take out some of the TRF guys, the TRF leader gets all angry and wants revenge. Cos that's totally professional. He then physically assaults Lennox to get him out of the way. If Lennox is his superior officer then isn't that a gaolable offence? #courtmartial

  • Why was Sqweeks hiding behind a thin sheet of metal? Why didn't Izabella ensure that he had a better hiding spot? From the Chicago scene we know that Sqweeks is better at hiding than this.

  • Izabella tells Cade that the TRF drones have a mother drone just like the ones back in Chicago. Back in Chicago? Did I miss something?

  • Why did Cogman dive out of the way when the drone swooped in to attack Cade? Cogman's mission was to deliver Cade alive to Lord Chuml--,
    Folgarn. Cogman is incredibly strong and he can shoot missiles from his mouth! He could've easily taken down that drone.

  • Morshower casually orders Lennox's team (along with TRF) to go to the UK. Does this make Morshower a TRF officer or an Army officer? How are these Americans able to casually enter another country like that? In ROTF we see the Americans contact Egyptian and Jordanian forces rather than just deploying troops into their territories without consent. Okay, we do see MI6 and British police cooperating with TRF/US Army guys which implies that there's official cooperation happening. But a quick line before then like saying that they would call MI6 while Lennox and his guys are inbound would've helped clear this up. They did it in ROTF.

  • Earth = Unicron. I think that this might make little to no sense for the general non-fan audience. At best it must just seem ridiculous. At least Transformers Prime actually explained why and how Unicron became Earth.
    You got time to have people swearing all over the place but not enough time for Quintessa or any of the Transformers to simply state that Unicron is the Earth's core and how the Earth formed around his slumbering form? Really?


...sigh... another hour and a half of this to endure...