Transformers: The Last Knight (Transformers 5) 3D

Latest 'Transformers' film better than expected (Review By Subhash K. Jha ; Rating: ***1/2)

Welcome to the age of rage.

The war between constantly-transmuting machines and human beings that started in the first "Transformers" film ten years ago has now reached a point of no return. Or a point of illimitable returns, if you look at the collections of the latest film which are impressive in spite of the savage worldwide reviews.

And what exactly are the critics so offended by? "Transformers: The Last Knight" breaks none of the rules that director Michael Bay had set in the first film of the franchise in 2007. Bay adds renewed vigour in the battle between Man and Machine as he takes the story back by many centuries to give us a direct link between the outerspace invasion by the machines and Merlin, the inebriated magician in 484 AD.

Here, I must mention that I found the legendary Stanley Tucci's magician far more entertaining that Shah Rukh Khan's Goga Pasha in "Tubelight". Tucci plays Merlin as a tipsy mischievous over-aged brat with a sense of propriety hanging out of his slurring tongue even when civilisation is threatened with extinction.

Bay has a great sense of fun underlining even his most grim apocalyptic thesis on the ruination of civilisation. Here in the fifth "Transformers", he is on sturdy ground, enabling him to create visual splendour on a scale that's both awesome and believable. The relentlessly sweaty narrative is occasionally let down by actors who don't get the joke, who play their characters far too seriously.

For example, the little girl Isabela Moner who plays the very important character of the under-age drifter who befriends the Transformers and wages her own battle against their extinction.

Not the young girl's fault, but she just doesn't get the point. She struggles to convey gravitas where giggles are the order of the (Michael) Bay. I couldn't help remembering the little girl in Logan and her resilient and powerful rapport with Hugh Jackman. Here in "Transformers", Mark Wahlberg keeps saying the the girl is "family".

We just have to take his word for it.

Not that the franchise takes a beating for the want of intrinsic credibility. "Transformers: The Last Knight" moves at a rapid fire speed generating mayhem from the brittle life forces of a virtual reality. The transmutant special effects are bigger, larger and more vibrant than ever before.

Bay's forte is spectacle. He clogs the screen with a retinue of remarkable visuals, some so awe-inspiring that they leave you wondering how on earth (and other planets) can such cinematic splendour of such interplanetary proportions be achieved.

If you are looking for the human touch as ceaselessly altering machines invade earth, there is plenty of that happening with great actors like Anthony Hopkins and John Turturro pitching in with their muted might to create a world where, as Man and Machine compete hard to be mean, they generate a kind of unrehearsed humour and warmth that comes to a Big Screen Spectacle only when the director is sure he has nothing to prove anymore in the given franchise.

Adroitly assembled, sinewy and savage, supple and funny, "Transformers" in its latest avatar is far more impressive than you expect it to be.

'Transformers: The Last Knight': Brilliantly choreographed action sequences in a convoluted plot (Review By Troy Ribeiro; Rating: **)

The Transformers film series is basically mounted as a marketing tool to promote Hashbro Toys and it offers nothing meaningful, cinematically.

Directed by Michael Bay, this edition of the Transformers is no different from its previous four films. So, you will know what you are getting in for -- a loud, poorly stretched plot, loaded with bland characters, CGI laden action sequences mounted through senseless direction.

Like in all the other earlier Transformer films, once again the world is in peril and there are large-scale battles that involve humans and two sets of giant shape-shifting mechanical creatures.

The film surprisingly begins on a promising note. In 484 AD, England, King Arthur's wizard Merlin (Stanley Tucci) forges an alliance with a group of twelve Transformers who have hidden on the Earth. He makes a deal with them to help King Arthur and his knights. He is given an alien staff that will protect them.

Around 1600 years later, Optimus Prime voiced by Peter Cullen, is searching for his maker. When he arrives on his home planet Cybertron, he is put under the spell of the evil Quintessa voiced by Gemma Chan and told that he must destroy Earth so that Cybertron can exist. In order to do so, he should have the alien staff.

Meanwhile, Isabelle -- a survivor from the Battle of Chicago -- is rescued by Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) who comes into contact with an ancient talisman that puts him on the radar of the eccentric Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins). Bunton also needs Oxford professor Vivian Wembley (Laura Haddock) in order to find the alien staff that will stop the incoming Cybertron from destroying Earth. Also there is a military force called the "TRF" whose job is to spice up the plot.

Mounted with excellent production values, the visuals are bright and dazzlingly glossy. The sound designed to accompany the visuals are equally reverberating and deafening.

The only thing that stands out in the film are the well-choreographed action sequences and the 3D visual effects.

By the end of it, the film seems like an epic. But honestly, the plot packed with too many sub-plots which are unnecessarily elaborated, ends up like an incoherent mess that will leave even die-hard fans exhausted and confused.

Overall, this film fails to deliver on the one thing that it blatantly promised: The story of, The Last Knight.