At this point, Michael Bay directing Transformers films is like that friend of yours at the party who was drunk hours ago but keeps tossing back shots. When he first arrived he was the life of the party, but now he has to drive home and you realize that someone should’ve snatched the keys from him a long time ago. The Transformers movies started off as a goofy, but fun and action packed thrill ride with low expectations due to the fact that it’s based off of a line of action figures. But now, the series has effectively become dumb and redundant.
If you thought that the plot to Transformers 2,3, and 4 were overly convoluted, then get ready for this shit. Yeah, I said ‘shit’, and if that bothers you then you probably shouldn’t see this movie because the word is used in every other sentence like the entire cast are fifth graders who think cursing makes them cool and edgy. The heroic Optimus Prime has left Earth in hopes of finding and killing his creator. Back on our planet, the military has outlawed all transformers and is hunting them. You’d think after the Autobots have saved their asses in four movies that they’d stop blowing up the good guys… but whatever.
Meanwhile, Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) and some 14 year old we’re made to think is relevant but isn’t (Isabela Moner) are fugitives for harboring Bumblebee and the rest of the Autobots. Yeager finds a medallion that belonged to twelve ancient transformers that fought with King Arthur and the wizard Merlin, which brings him into contact with Anthony Hopkins and his annoying robot butler who want to recover the staff of Merlin (portrayed as a buffoon by Stanley Tucci) that they’ll need to keep Earth from being devoured by Cybertron, the Transformers’ home world. Laura Haddock plays Merlin’s successor (that’s a spoiler but you shouldn’t care) and Josh Duhamel and John Turturro reprise their roles for no real reason.
There. Those are the overt basics of the plot and that doesn’t even mention Autobot arch nemesis Megatron who also returns in a useless subplot. So you can only imagine how meandering this nearly three hour film is. At a certain point, there isn’t any reason to care about any of the story, because you know its eventually going to turn into a robot war with a bunch of military aircrafts and explosions. But even that action is often muddled and disorienting.
There are so many robots that you wonder if the writers even remembered them all. Constantly, at every corner one comes, makes a corny joke, blows something up, gets shot, then leaves, appearing on screen just long enough to make you question why it appeared in the first place. The dinobots return from Age of Extinction only to be inexplicably absent during the finale. And if you were excited about the battle between an evil Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, get ready to be Batman v Supermaned (“Why did you say that name!!!”). In fact, Optimus Prime is barely in the movie, so putting him on posters is like putting Hawkeye on the forefront of Avengers promotions.
The goofy humor, which gets less funny with each film, has finally hit rock bottom. There’s barely a chuckle to be had. There’s no Bernie Mac, T.J. Miller or Anthony Anderson here. No one brings the physical comedy that made Shia LaBeouf necessary. Mark Wahlberg looks bored and the feeble attempt at romantic chemistry between he and Haddock is lifeless. So by the time you actually get through the two hours of bull crap and get to the climactic battle, you just feel exhausted. There are just too many characters that are lackluster and irrelevant.
This series has run its course. The writing no longer makes any sense and other than Bumblebee, no character is truly likable or memorable. Even Fast and the Furious knew how to shake things up a bit. Enough with the transformers made to be stereotypes and the quirky, dumb humans searching for some magical McGuffin. The animated films and TV shows can be taken more seriously, so it’s clear that this franchise needs new blood. This is supposed to be Michael Bay’s last time directing Transformers. But after watching his final monotonous entry, it just feels like we’ve already been enablers to our drunken friend who ruined the party.
FINAL GRADE: A big fat Decepticon sized F