All sound and fury signifying nothing
TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (12A, 149 mins)
FOR his final tour of duty in the Transformers director’s chair, Michael Bay doesn’t go out with just a bang – he unleashes a barrage of ground-shaking booms.
Apparently, there are more than 10 prequels, sequels and spin-offs in development. That’s a lot of headache medication.
For this fifth picture, he incorporates a ridiculous origin story tethered to Arthurian legend.
Three scriptwriters overload the picture’s circuitry with robots great and small, including an army of new evil Decepticons, plus a comical sidekick fashioned out of spare parts.
It’s impossible to distinguish the characters in the heat of battle as metal fists pummel metal faces or metal hands tear metal limbs from armatures.
Somewhere in the melee, Sir Anthony Hopkins lazily chews scenery in a thankless supporting role and Mark Wahlberg takes his working-class hero to risible heights as the saviour of the human race.
In 484 AD, King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) leads his knights into battle, flanked by 12 robot warriors summoned by Merlin (Stanley Tucci). The magician’s staff is buried in time, forgotten until the present when the Decepticons hunt for the precious artefact.
Fugitive inventor Cade Yeager (Wahlberg) answers the battle cry, aided by plucky teen orphan Izabella (Isabela Moner) and Autobot comrades.
Historian Sir Edmund Burton (Hopkins), his sociopathic robo-butler Cogman (Jim Carter) and spirited Oxford university professor Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock) become Yeager’s guides to salvation, while, US Army Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and the Transformers Reaction Force track his movements.
Transformers: The Last Knight is unlikely to win new fans to the franchise, hanging spectacular yet soulless special effects on a gossamer-thin quest for Merlin’s staff.
“Without sacrifice, there can be no victory,” opines King Arthur.
We sacrifice 149 minutes for Bay’s film and there is no sense of triumph.