Movie · 2017 · Action, Adventure, Science Fiction · 2h 34m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 0.2/10 (441.2K ratings)
Two worlds collide. One survives.
Overview
Humans and Transformers are at war. Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager; Bumblebee; an English Lord; and an Oxford Professor.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.2/10
IMDb: 5.2/10
Letterboxd: 2.05/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 16%
Metacritic: 27
TMDB: 6.1/10
Director
Michael Bay
Production
Paramount Pictures, di Bonaventura Pictures, Ian Bryce Productions, DeSanto/Murphy Productions, Hasbro
Cast
Mark Wahlberg, Laura Haddock, Peter Cullen, Anthony Hopkins, Erik Aadahl, Josh Duhamel, Gemma Chan, Jim Carter, Santiago Cabrera, Isabela Merced, Jerrod Carmichael, Stanley Tucci, Liam Garrigan, Martin McCreadie, Rob Witcomb, Marcus Fraser, John Hollingworth, Daniel Adegboyega, Benjamin Maurice Webb, Glenn Morshower
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A maximalist blockbuster with flashes of visual invention, but the story is so overstuffed, incoherent, and tonally chaotic that the spectacle rarely pays off. It may amuse viewers who enjoy watching a franchise collapse into glorious nonsense, but for most people it’s a hard pass.
Best for
viewers who enjoy big-budget chaos and sensory overload
fans of unintentionally funny blockbuster excess
people curious about Michael Bay at his most unhinged
completionists of the live-action Transformers series
Skip if
you want a coherent plot or emotional payoff
you dislike frantic editing and constant noise
you prefer clean world-building over mythology soup
you’re not interested in franchise entries that feel self-parodic
Overview
The Last Knight is the kind of studio blockbuster that seems to have been assembled in a fever dream: Arthurian legend, alien lore, wartime imagery, and apocalyptic robot combat all collide with almost no concern for clarity. It’s less a movie than a barrage of images, ideas, and detonations, some of them genuinely striking, many of them absurdly overcooked.
Worth noting
There are moments where the scale and visual confidence are hard to deny. Michael Bay stages destruction with real technical swagger, and the film occasionally finds a bizarre grandeur in its own excess. But the narrative is so tangled and the character work so thin that even the wildest set pieces feel like they’re happening in a vacuum.
Bottom line
For viewers who like their blockbusters messy enough to become cult curiosities, this has a certain deranged appeal. For everyone else, it’s a punishing watch: loud, overlong, and fundamentally uninterested in making its mythology legible or its drama matter.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Framesofnick (1★) · 2151 likes
Michael bay had to be on some fucking ungodly substance to come up with this shit
Patrick Willems (2★) · 1525 likes
I haven't been this confused by a movie since the first time I watched Mulholland Drive.
matt lynch (3.5★) · 1373 likes
"I didn't make this movie for the critics. I didn't even make it for the fans. I just made it for Matt." -- Michael Bay
Easily the most baffling, incoherent, plastic, and gorgeous installment since REVENGE OF THE FALLEN, but sadly significantly less assaultive and toxic, tamer on that front even than AGE OF EXTINCTION. And yet Bay re-staging the opening of GLADIATOR and then later on pulling his own Omaha Beach with giant asshole robots is still a sight… more
Jamelle Bouie (2★) · 1097 likes
so if i understand this correctly, the transformers killed hitler?
SilentDawn · 712 likes
??/100
What dazzling, wondrous nonsense. The constantly shifting aspect ratio is oddly fitting for such an incoherent piece of plasticity and fantasy - each frame its own entity, apathetic of its peers. Mark Wahlberg threatens a child and Stanley Tucci plays Merlin. Whatever *this* is, you can be sure of two things: the formal complexity and visual work is something only Bay could accomplish, and the inept execution of its narrative is something only Bay could accomplish. He's above (and far below) his peers in different ways.
2012 · Thriller, Action, Adventure · 2h 11m · PG-13 · Curator 0.5/10 (394.9K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Another big studio sci-fi action movie built on spectacle and military hardware, but with a more self-aware B-movie energy.