Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

You know what? I didn't hate this one. Indeed I think it might actually be my favourite! Naturally alarm bells go off when you think your hear Sir Anthony Hopkins doing the narration. Surely not? As this latest outing for the unidentifiable mechanised battle-mongers takes shapes, though, there is actually a bit more of a story underpinning it. Of course there is a secret, all-powerful gizmo for them to discover and fight over and this time we drag in Arthurian legend, Stonehenge and a belted earl in the form of Sir Anthony. This film does have a sense of imminent conclusion to it too as "Optimus" sets off in search of his duplicitous creator "Quintessa" (Gemma Chan) with a view to a showdown that will secure the future of Earth for ever. Meantime, "Cade" (still Mark Wahlberg) and "Lennox" (a well past his best Josh Duhamel) are going through the combat motions as the legendary staff of "Merlin" has to stay out of the hands of the dastardly "Decepticons". This has more of it's tongue in it's cheek, it's less intense and takes itself less seriously than some of the others in the series. We still have to endure the rather supercilious monologues from the increasingly pompous "Prime" but this, for me at any rate, had more of a substantial sense of adventure to it. As usual, the casting - Laura Haddock is terrible - isn't up to much but keep an eye out for Stanley Tucci who clearly couldn't get enough after the last film and so comes back for a brief cameo here. It's rotten, forgettable and ought to be the last of these - but I still rather grudgingly engaged with it a bit more.

The _Transformers_ franchise has never been good. Some say that the series is "Dumb fun with good action and cool explosions. To me, that could maybe be used to describe only the third movie. The first one is promising and has a certain "child-like-wonder" appeal. But neither of them are truly **good**. The second _Transformers_ is meaningless garbage.
But when _Age of Extinction_ was released in 2014, the franchise hit new, abysmal lows. Watching _Transformers_ wasn't just a chore, it wasn't just boring, it was excruciating. It was so bad I felt nauseous. I was aggravated to the point of brimming with feelings of genuine anger. They say that if a film makes you feel something, that is a victory in itself. Be it sadness, excitement, intrigue, joy, hope, nostalgia, hysteria, love, fear, warmth - whatever - I tend to agree with that statement. What I felt in _Age of Extinction_ was not a victory. It was a failure. A Guinness Book of World Records level failure.
_Transformers: The Last Knight_, is at least that bad again.
Arguably worse.
I guess it didn't dedicate an entire character to being a justification for paedophilia, so it has that up on its predecessor.
_Final rating:½ - So bad it’s offensive. I may never fully recover._