‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Is ‘The Worst Movie of the Summer’ and 8 Other Scathing Reviews

One critic calls Michael Bay’s film an “irredeemable garbage that gives summertime blockbuster fare a bad name”

transformers the last knight
Paramount

“Transformers: The Last Knight” hasn’t gotten a good rap among critics, who call the film “overstuffed and incomprehensible” and even go so far as to call it “the worst movie of the summer.”

“‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ is irredeemable garbage that gives summertime blockbuster fare a bad name, an insufferable slog through terrible decisions, dreadful execution, and the flagrant pilfering of more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime,” The Film File’s Dustin Putman wrote of the fifth film in the franchise.

“It’s easily the worst installment in this endlessly awful series, probably the worst movie of the summer,” Movie Nation’s Roger Moore wrote.

The film starring Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins and Laura Haddock holds a score of 17 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The film is directed by Michael Bay, based on a script by Ken Nolan, Matt Holloway and Art Marcum.

“For non-fans, there’s no explaining how this series got to a fifth installment, but if you’re one of those audiences that has eagerly forked over your cash four times before, Paramount and Hasbro thank you, and they’ve served up another hasenpfeffer of loud, disjointed confusion for you in ‘Transformers: The Last Knight,’” wrote TheWrap’s film critic Alonso Duralde.

See 9 of the worst reviews below.

Cary Darling, Star Telegram

“Now, director Michael Bay has solved this conundrum of almost quantum-theory proportions that has bedeviled moviegoers since the first ‘Transformers’ sequel in 2009. Like Moses coming down from the mountain, he has bestowed upon us the answer: ‘Transformers: The Last Knight,’ a movie that is at once loud yet incoherent, complex yet idiotic, and expensive yet worthless. Of course, complaining about a ‘Transformers’ movie is like griping about gravity. What’s the point? But even by the standards of other “Transformers” movies (a couple of them certainly had their pleasures), ‘The Last Knight’ falls far short, disrespecting the canon of the original story so much that even die-hard fans should rebel.”

Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post

“Let’s just hope that ‘The Last Knight’ is the last ‘Transformers.’”

Eric Kohn, IndieWire

“It’s an unabashed freewheeling mess of CGI explosions, fast-talking strategies and shiny metal monstrosities clashing in epic battles. And it’s actually kind of fun, in an infuriating sort of way, to watch the most ridiculous Hollywood movie of the year do its thing.”

Roger Moore, Movie Nation

“It’s easily the worst installment in this endlessly awful series, probably the worst movie of the summer (‘Cars 3,”‘you’re OFF the hook), a garbled action-and-edit-packed mess that bastardizes history and legend, defies coherence and proves that Anthony Hopkins will do anything for one last big, bad check.”

Donald Clarke, The Irish Times

“The film is, as usual, almost impossible to follow if your mind functions as most drugless minds do. One thinks of the sensory overloads that the CIA folded around General Noriega’s compounds. The music is deafening. The dialogue is bellowed. The computer graphics are so dizzying and unreal that the brain struggles to make coherent sense of them. Few shots last longer than 10 seconds. It’s as if Bay and his crew are asymptotically moving towards a perfect montage of still images that stay on the screen for no time at all.”

Dustin Putman, The Film File

“‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ is irredeemable garbage that gives summertime blockbuster fare a bad name, an insufferable slog through terrible decisions, dreadful execution, and the flagrant pilfering of more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime. A blindfolded person with a gun pointed at his or her head couldn’t pen a worse screenplay. A director who has just woken from a thirty-year coma and been immediately wheeled to set couldn’t make a less inept feature. In an instant, Michael Bay has destroyed whatever minor progress he had begun to make, the lessons he learned about how to helm action and create a modicum of tension incinerated in the flames of his latest pyrotechnic stunt. Is there anything positive to be said? Yes. The CG-enhanced sky looks really pretty in one shot as a spacecraft rises out of the ocean. ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ is an endurance-testing assault on the art of cinema, one physical altercation away from becoming criminal.”

Matt Singer, Screen Crush

“You would think that after five attempts, Michael Bay would eventually figure out how to make a coherent ‘Transformers movie.’ Apparently not. I challenge anyone — including this film’s four writers — to explain the story of ‘Transformers: The Last Knight,’ how the characters get from point A to point B, and why any of it matters. I maintain that it cannot be done. Either this movie is dumb or I am.”

Angie Han, Mashable

“I can’t remember the last time I felt so little while watching a movie. I wasn’t even bored, so much as just dazed, like I’d woken up in someone else’s dream. ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ isn’t a particularly good film – it’s overstuffed and incomprehensible, hampered by bizarre narrative choices and inconsistent pacing.”

Peter Howell, Toronto Sun: 

“‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ is their most concerted assault yet, making me fear for the sanity of the planet. Anyone attempting a drinking game whereby shots were consumed for each explosion would be unconscious within 10 minutes. Public showings of this movie, all 148 intolerable minutes of it, should be referred to as bludgeonings rather than screenings.”

Comments