To go with the theme of Seibetron's trip to the movies, the reviews will be followed by some merch that we got at the premiere (some free and some at a cost).
Now, let's start with our first review, written by Seibertronian moderation Rodimus Prime. It is a spoiler-free review, so if you have yet to see the movie, it is safe for you to read. It can be found below:
Rodimus Prime wrote:his is a spoiler-free review for The Last Knight, which I saw on June 20th.
Overall, the film was a positive experience, but I guess that depends on your individual expectations. The pacing was more brisk than Age of Extinction, and the story was a little more engaging, but not by much. The characters were treated the same as before, mainly the Transformers. We get a little more in-depth look at the history of the Transformers, but only enough to make the events in the film convenient.
The main characters of the film this time around are Cade Yeager and Bumblebee. Some other characters are used sparingly, or just at the right moments to further the plot. The human characters are all portrayed well, none of them seem wasted, unlike some of the Transformers. The action is fast-paced, especially the car chases and battle scenes. Michael Bay definitely put his penchant for explosions to good use here. Fortunately, toilet humor was at a bare minimum, perhaps 2 or 3 instances. Adult language was much more prevalent, however. The film definitely earned its PG-13 rating there.
The story of the Transformers themselves was further revealed, even though the movie was still human-heavy. It does seem the Transformers share at least equal screen time and importance in this film, as opposed to the previous ones. This aspect seems to be improving with each movie. There were a few things left unexplained, and the ending was definitely left open for the sequel which is intended for 2019, with or without Michael Bay. I rate this film on the level of Age of Extinction, with a somewhat thin story and a lot of action. If you liked that film, you will like this one.
Now from here on out, we are in some spoiler territory. So if you do not want to read any spoilers for your upcoming film experience, Stop Here!
Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!
Got it? Good.
To start off our spoiler-ish review section, We have a review from Canadian News Staff member William-James88, who certainly had a different experience from Rodimus Prime when it comes to the movie. Read up:
William-James88 wrote:Wrap your head around this one: human character Santos, played by Santiago Cabrera, has more screen time than Optimus Prime and Megatron COMBINED.
Who is Santos? Who cares! I sure didn't. And he is far from being a main character in this. But that fact that another random human addition to the ever expanding human cast of the Transformers franchise has more screen time than who should be the franchise's hero and villain is quite dissapointing.
Yes, once again, after what I thought was an improvement in AOE, the robots get the shaft in a story about not one but 2 chosen humans saving the day.
Here is a massive spoiler: that big three headed dragon you see in the trailers is part of the final battle and he does absolutely nothing. Neither does Drift or Crosshairs. And all the cool robot parts are in the trailer. Stitching all the shots from the Optimus vs Bumblebee fight from the trailers gives you the entire fight you see on screen, bar the resolution. What you don't see in the trailers is the ton of human stuff that no one watches these movies for. That's quite sad to me.
I had faith in this film. There was a writer's room, a sense that people cared. But it seems nomatter who is writing, they are dictated to make unfunny jokes, racial stereotypes, and mcguffins galore wrapped in nonsensical plots.
Case in point, the titular Last Knight. There is a lot of time dedicated to the Last Knight, and him discovering who he is, but the finale and end game isn't linked to him.There isn't a purpose to him since the mcguffin is related to another character. There is also a ton of plot holes and actual movie making errors, such as Sqweek's arm changing between shots, using the wrong microphone audio for Laura Haddock's voice in one scene, and robots being in robot mode and vehicle mode from one shot to the next with no sound or indication that they transformed.
It feels very amateurish from Michael Bay, who doesn't make continuity errors this noticeable usually. And of course, there are the afore mentioned plot holes which are more blatant than before, with the worst offender being Bumblebee's voice. Is it fine? Is it broken? Does it need fixing? TELL ME!!!!!
Oh and I will leave you with this, there are two scenes dedicated to talking about either Mark Wahlberg or Laura Haddock's sex life and they are both at least three times as long as the final fight of Megatron vs Optimus Prime.
Yay.
Next up, we have a review from Seibertronian News Staffer Mindmaster, who had a good experience from the movie. Check out his thoughts below.
Mindmaster wrote:Saw it tonight. Non-spoiler version: this is probably the best movie out of the five, without hyperbole. I liked it so much that it made me go out and finally get Voyager Optimus and Beserker on my way home, and I was slightly ambivalent about getting them before. Age of Extinction made me want Hound so bad, and now The Last Knight makes me want Cogman just as badly, if not more.
Spoiler-version: Things I liked and got excited about:
*Cogman. Literally the best thing ever. Dude had me rolling every time he showed up. If he doesn't show up in the next one, my hope in humanity will be dashed.
*Unicron: he's finally been name-dropped in the movie universe! Kinda expected him to get mentioned somewhere, but wasn't expecting a Prime reference in that he turns out to be Earth. And that post-credit scene absolutely sets up the next one, nobody deny it.
*The Nemesis Prime name-drop. Now I wish they'd revise the Shadow Spark Optimus Prime packaging to reflect that.
*The WWII scene; as a history major, this was what I was waiting for. I really hope we see toys based on Bumblebee and Hot Rod's WWII designs.
*The Decepticons; finally! The main ones have personalities! Mohawk retool of Hunt for the Decepticons Brimstone, pls.
*All the references to the previous movies: Simmons; the Ark during the Moon's destruction; the Pyramid still slightly destroyed from Devastator in Revenge of the Fallen; Starscream's head (Megatron even goes Hamlet on it); Viviane name-dropping Shockwave and Soundwave when she gets kidnapped by Hot Rod; even Sam Witwicky gets a small nod.
And a few things I didn't like about it;
*Cogman; despite him being my favorite thing about the movie, he never transformed and combined with the Aston Martin like they pre-movie hype led us to believe. Was very disappointed, but optimistic that it might happen in the next one.
*Dinobots; once again, they get shafted as far as screen time is concerned. I wasn't happy that they showed up for less time than Age of Extinction, and they never even transformed.
Kinda irritated about it, but whatevs I guess.
*The Decepticons; wished they had survived to see the end, especially Nitro.
*The Knights of Cybertron: kinda irritated how it takes all twelve for them to combine into Dragonstorm, yet the upcoming Leader-class figure only breaks down into two. I get that it would be a nightmare to engineer a twelve-bot dragon combiner, but still.
*To a lesser degree, Hot Rod's gun. No further comments.
All in all, this movie did a lot more right than all the others. Thinking about the previous ones, I didn't really have a favorite; the first one was my least favorite, then the next three kinda were tied. They never beat each other out because they all had an equal amount of things I liked and disliked. But The Last Knight? To me, it unquestionably had more right than wrong. Definitely the most Transformer-y of the franchise. I think we're finally getting on the right track as far as Transformers movies are concerned, and I've regained my confidence in the movies.
To finish off with the longer sort of reviews, here are some of my thoughts on the movie, which I rated as an overall enjoyable experience, but one that could have done a bit better while still being worth the trip.
D-Maximus_Prime wrote:I liked the con stuff, like we actually had some good cons stuff starting, but it got cut off pretty quick, which is a shame. though we still have Megatron, Berserker, and maybe Barricade. Hot Rod felt good but really needed more screen time (we can agree on cool ass weapon though). Cogman was the main cybertronian presence, and he was a good character, though I was bummed that he was the main cybertronian presence throughout much of the film. And we had his actual headmaster part cut. Boo. And then Crosshairs, Drift, and Hound are barely in the film basically. Like, only in some scenes. Hot Rod was in more scenes, and I feel he was under-represented.
Also, topspin had Leadfoot's head.
Transformations were good too. Sqweeks was the only one not to transform in the film, and they did it a lot. Spent some good time looking at the transformations too.
I felt the first maybe half to 2/3 of the film was on the right track, but the last bit kinda fell off the rails some for me. Felt rushed and incomplete, like a shadow of what was intended.
Definitely feels like it could have easily been 2 movies, or 3 hours, and things would have gone to the potential the film really had.
I did really like how much Megatron used his arm cannon though, and I really feel that they cut a whole part about where Quintessa somehow rebuilt Megatron from Galvatron, made him a knight's body, and that red bit on his face, which he had in the film and was a sign of Quintessa control,
showed that he was doing her bidding, hence some of the events in the film. I also liked Bee in the film, though I think it really set some stuff up for the Bee movie. sir Burton said he was much different in the 1940's, like much more cruel and not ever referred to as nice, and maybe that is where the Bee movie will explore: murder and rage bot to kind Bee.
I actually did not take Quintessa's "death" scene as death. It almost appeared as if she simply left that shell in a shower of electrical current, only to show up in human form in the id credits scene. I liked Sqweeks, but definitely see how he was kind of a waste. I thought Izzy was a waste too, which is a shame, but the movie didn't feel like it really needed her, or for her to be a main character. I only saw Grimlock and Slug, and it was disappointing not to see Strafe or Scorn.
It was also sad that those dinobots we did see disappeared completely really quickly.
I don't want anyone to think i didn't enjoy myself or the movie. I did. I just feel it had more potential, and time and too much trying to fit into a thin plot did it in
Finally, having seen the film themselves, we have a few other thoughts from fellow Seibertronians, some of whom got the point across very good in some short sentences. Check them out below.
It Is Him wrote:The first hour offered surprising promise and fun, followed by an hour of bloat, and ended with an action sequence that just didn't take well enough of advantage of the great robot cast introduced in the beginning.
It was better than AoE, and ultimately I'm glad I saw the movie.
Randomhero wrote:I just got out of it and i really enjoyed it. its not perfect in the slightest but i had fun.
however i walked away saying "so they stopped sucking the earth dry but isnt cybertron still colliding with the planet? they saved Earth but isnt Unicron still waking up?" oh well it was a fun ride.
zko wrote:I liked it, I've liked all the Bay movies pretty well, and this one was my favorite.
It played out a bit like the plot of season 1 and 2 of prime as a Bay movie, mixed with some of the G1 episode where they go back to medieval times and also the old kids read along book "When Continents Collide" had some stuff in there that seemed to be almost reflecting some biblical, book of revelations stuff with the plot about the horns, the dragon, the seal etc, but that wasn't carried too far.
KVO Prime wrote:I was disappointed... disappointed in myself to get so excited ...AGAIN... for a let down. What an incoherent piece of garbage. After a while I started timing it to see if any scene lasted longer than 2 seconds before violently jerking back somewhere else. Don't they have stabilization gyroscopes? Jeezus.. and all the bots shown ONCE for their toy placement was absurd.
all_the_primes wrote:This movie was a mess. Straight to to the point: I will not watch it again. Okay, maybe when I am incredibly bored... But I'd rather be watching Sesame Street, TFP or Inglorious Basterds, I respect myself that much.
TLK movie felt overwhelmingly unfocused and pacing was too fast/poor to the point that I lost focus on what the story(s) was about. If you are looking for some robot fighting action, it's there, but nothing groundbreaking. Over all, (in the words of Anthony Fantano) not good.
...
OVERALL/FINAL THOUGHTS/TLDR: This movie was godly unfocused, probably the most unfocused movie I've seen to date (an impressive feat). I could go on and bag on this movie for days, but I did find it enjoyable at some very certain times (surprisingly so), but if had an opportunity to watch it again, I'd gladly decline. In fact, after writing this review and leaving a great lot of critiques out, I realize how much I did not enjoy this movie.
Well, that is all we have room for in today's review post. As you might have seen, the movie was nothing particularly spectacular, but it did have some good moments and some good fun, depending on who watched it. It definitely wasn't perfect, and it definitely had some issues, but in the end it is still a toss up over who will like it and who won't.
We hope these reviews were helpful to you. We hope they were informative and helpful. Let us know if you go to check out the movie, and let us know what you thought of the movie in the comments section below!
Now, here is some merchandise either aquired for free or at cost by xrotorstormx and myself, as we went during the Optimus Prime Tuesday showings. xrotorstormx picked up some Last Knight inspired drink cups, a popcorn bowl, and a Bumblebee shirt from her experience, whereas yours truly got an Optimus Prime shirt and a lanyard with a Last Knight inspired card.
