Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

My Review

“Transformers: The Last Knight” is the story of Optimus Prime returning to his dead home world of Cybertron and running into trouble with the evil Quintessa, who forces him to return to Earth to search for Merlin’s ancient staff to revive their planet. Michael Bay had directed the first four movies (2007, 2009, 2011, 2014) and was out of fresh new ideas for the fifth in the series. The atrocious screenplay was written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, and Ken Nolan.

The voice cast includes Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Gemma Chan as Quintessa, Erik Aadahl as Bumblebee, Jim Carter as Cogman, Omar Sy as Hot Rod, Ken Watanabe as Drift, John Goodman as Hound, and Steve Buscemi as Daytrader. The human cast consists of Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Hopkins, John Turturro, Glenn Morshower, Mitch Pileggi, Tony Hale, and Gil Birmingham.

“Transformers: The Last Knight” brought in lots of money at the box office, but was a financial flop due to the large production and advertising budgets. Bad news for Hasbro Studios, Di Bonaventura Pictures, and Paramount Pictures. It was nominated for ten Golden Raspberry Awards (with zero wins) including The Razzie Nominee So Rotten You Loved It. Two more sequels were released – “Bumblebee” (2018) and “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” (2023).