I saw the new Transformers movie today, The Last Knight.
It was awful.
I mean the average review score of 41 was too high.
This coming from a woman who generally enjoys everything (there are a few exceptions, like the last incarnation of Road Warrior, but I was totally a minority for that opinion).
Seriously, I can usually find some redeeming quality in movies, give a film the benefit of the doubt.
Nope. Not for this one.
For starters it was long - waaay to long. Editors should have been more judicious in cut, cut, cutting.
Second, the script was awful. It was confusing, actors did things that didn't make any sense whatsoever in the context of the story, and the whole idea of the last knight was squandered.
Squandered too, is how I would describe the star roles of Anthony Hopkins (really, Sir? I'd strip you of that title for this blunder) and Mark Wahlberg and Josh Duhamel. Wahlberg's character was slightly better than Duhamel's only if you saw the previous movie.
Nope, no way she could have followed this story and that's a darn shame. She's got grandkids that might enjoy this action flick and she'd be able to intelligibly converse with them on the subject of Autobots and Decepticons.
All sequels should be able to stand on their own feet without having to have read or seen a previous incarnation. It doesn't take a lot of effort for a decent writer to bring their audience up to speed.
The biggest hero of the Autobots, Optimus Prime was a dupe. The smart warrior leader of this group of machines didn't act like he had a rational thought in his head. Some other type of bot, wherever she came from, convinced him that he needed redemption for supposedly destroying the home world. This smart guy didn't even question anything about this entity.
And the only thing that snapped him out of this "brain washing" was hearing another Autobots voice. Talk about dumb. Really? Nothing any of the other bots or people said could get through but this one bot's voice? Nope, not buying it.
This movie, unfortunately, is going to make a lot of money which is why the likes of Hopkins, Wahlberg and Duhamel participated in the cast. I'm pretty sure Michael Bay and Di Bonaventura were happy with the sign ons since those names give the film a sort of credential. The movie cost about $217 million to make and will top $16 million in receipts over this weekend and it is totally undeserving of our cash.
There is one highlight of the movie.
The end credits. The end credits named the cast, the music and the film locations. It was thankfully and blissfully short (hey, do we really need to see all 15,000 names of every person who worked on the film? The names roll by too fast to read anyway).
Save your money if you haven't gone, and wait to see it on Netflix or Red Box.
The disjointed plot, unbelievable character actions and a generally confused and glossed over end of the world deadline killed Transformers: The Last Knight.