Transformers 5: The Last Straw
Michael Bay is relaxing in an Italian villa and counting stacks of cold, hard cash after the theatrical run of the newest addition to his Transformers franchise. He’s wondering how it gets easier every time. This movie is Michael Bay responding to all the critics of the past four films in his franchise, who have pointed out every flaw possible, made every single possible youtube reaction video. He’s leaning back on some plush alpaca-fur chair that costs more than my tuition and laughing. He’s taken all that criticism and given us his response in the form of Transformers: The Last Knight. It’s a resounding middle-finger to anyone with any sense of what a good movie should be.
The dialogue reminds me of my attempt to write a short story for my creative fiction class last year at 2 am the night before it was due. Lines like, “It’s an alien ship,” by Josh Duhamel’s character-who-I-can’t-remember-the-name-of are so lazy, it’s as if the writers were trying to end the series.
The trailers tried to cater to many audiences by pushing a little girl as one of the main protagonists we’re supposed to care about. She shows up to meet Mark Wahlberg at the beginning of the movie, and they share one tender moment in his trailer home seemingly setting up a father-daughter-like relationship. Wahlberg then leaves her there, and she isn’t seen again until the final battle where she shows up on a floating landmass with soldiers because reasons. It’s definitely standard operating procedure for Special Forces to bring a middle-schooler with them to fight giant robots. Maybe it was take your child to work day?
The plot is no better than the dialogue or character development. Taking the main draw of the series out of play for most of the movie, Optimus Prime finds himself under mind-control by some Cybertronian goddess. He becomes “Nemesis Prime” to clarify this switch and leads this villain back to Earth where she tries to terraform Earth into Cybertron (which I’m pretty sure was the plot of half these movies but who cares). After literally 5 minutes being evil, a tussle with Bumblebee snaps Optimus back to his senses. I’ve seen the superhero-mind-control plot executed better on multiple 20 minute Cartoon Network shows.
The evil sorceress/creator goddess (still unsure exactly what she is) makes Whiplash from Iron Man 2 look like Joker from The Dark Knight. Where there used to be choreographed fight scenes, we’re given people slipping and falling like someone switched the bloopers version out during post-production. Wahlberg, Optimus Prime, a T-Rex, and a Dragon all pull that one move. Dialogue is optional as this movie spends more time showing pieces of Cybertron falling in slow motion than it does giving anyone any reasonable lines. Anthony Hopkins shows up and dies somewhere in the perfect storm but even his robot butler finds it hard to shed an oily tear. Megatron becomes a henchman and Shia LaBeouf makes a cameo in the form of a framed picture which does the impossible — make me long for the good old days of Transformers 1 and 2.
But Michael Bay doesn’t care.
We’ve already seen a moon landing conspiracy theory, dinosaurs, dragons, knights of the round table, and prophecies involving space robots in this series fueled by in-movie endorsements. But when Transformers 6: Unicorns and Rainbows comes out, I’ll stand in line and buy my ticket because Michael Bay knows he has an audience. I’ll pay the $20 and sit through 2 hours of mind-numbing cgi for 30 seconds of Optimus Prime looking at the camera and telling me that we have to save the world. And for those 30 seconds I’m the 5 year old boy holding my action figure, staring at my tv screen watching a fuzzy cartoon on a Saturday morning thinking, Autobots Roll Out.
