Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Michael Bay’s “Game of Thrones” but with Robots and Explosions

🎬 Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers, shall we?

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The Setup

By The Last Knight, the franchise had officially stopped pretending to care about continuity. We open with a scene straight out of a medieval fever dream — the Autobots helping Merlin himself, who’s played by a very clearly drunken Stanley Tucci. I’m not exaggerating — the man’s stumbling, slurring, and chugging wine like he’s auditioning for Drunk History.

And yes, this is dumb. The Transformers not only helped Merlin, they brought along a giant three-headed dragon made of robots to help King Arthur win his big battle. So now we’ve got magic staffs, knights of the round table, and dragon Transformers — because sure, Michael Bay must’ve binge-watched Game of Thrones and thought, “Yeah, I can do that, but louder.”


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The Megan Fox Void & New Faces

Still no Megan Fox (booted post-Revenge of the Fallen). Instead, we get:

Isabela Moner as Izabella — a scrappy orphan with robot pals.

Laura Haddock as Viviane Wembly — an Oxford professor who’s also the last living descendant of Merlin, because of course she is.

Mark Wahlberg returns as Cade Yeager — still the dumbest action hero name in film history.


Anthony Hopkins joins the chaos as Sir Edmund Burton — a lore-dumping historian who spends the movie explaining the Transformers’ secret history with humans. And he’s got Cogman, a robot butler who is both hyper-polite and disturbingly eager to commit acts of violence. This guy will pin you to the floor and purr about how badly he wants to hurt you — like a psychotic C-3PO on steroids.


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Characters & Actors Rundown

Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) – Inventor, accidental Autobot babysitter, and professional guy-who-yells-“what?!” every other scene.

Izabella (Isabela Moner) – Streetwise orphan, often sidelined because the plot has too many lore tangents.

Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins) – Basically the human Wikipedia of Transformers history. Clearly having fun, but also clearly not taking this seriously.

Cogman (voiced by Jim Carter) – A psychotic Alfred who plays the organ one minute and threatens to decapitate you the next.

Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock) – The Merlin descendant/love interest shoehorned into the plot.

Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) – Missing for half the film, returns as Nemesis Prime under brainwashing, only to be snapped out of it by Bumblebee’s voice.

Megatron (Frank Welker) – Still hanging around with no consistent motivation.

WWII Autobot Daughter subplot – Yep. Apparently, Bumblebee and other Autobots fought in WWII, and Bee was basically “the daughter” of a human soldier who knew him. This is brought up for about five minutes and never matters again.



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Robot Designs: The Bland, The Muted, The Metal Soup

Once again, the designs of these robots are bland, generic, and visually messy. Bay’s obsession with “hyper-realism” means every Transformer looks like a pile of gray car parts thrown into a blender.

You can’t tell who’s who without a roll call, because they’re all just shards of metal in muted colors, mashing into each other in fight scenes that look like scrap heaps in a tornado.

And don’t even get me started on the lack of iconic resemblance. Megatron from the G1 cartoon? Sleek, silver, clean silhouette. Megatron here? Some jagged medieval cosplayer with horns, a cape, and zero visual link to his roots. Bumblebee’s face? Looks like a mechanic took apart an air conditioning unit and called it a day.

They’re also skyscraper-sized now, which makes scale meaningless. One minute they’re towering over buildings, the next they’re chatting face-to-face with humans. Honestly, these designs are so muted and messy, you could swap two Autobots mid-scene and no one would notice.


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The Bayverse Lore is a Dumpster Fire 🔥🤖🗑

Look — I’ve been patient with the lore across these films. I let the first movie’s story about “the AllSpark crash-landing and Megatron showing up for the first time” slide. I tolerated Revenge of the Fallen telling me “Actually, Transformers have been here since the dawn of time” with a straight face. But by The Last Knight, Michael Bay has turned the lore into an all-you-can-eat contradiction buffet.

Let’s recap the madness from 2007 to now:

1. 2007 – Transformers:

Autobots have never been to Earth before.

Sam Witwicky’s granddad finds frozen Megatron, setting off the plot.



2. 2009 – Revenge of the Fallen:

Scratch that — Transformers were here during ancient Egypt.

There’s a giant Sun Harvester in the pyramids, and The Fallen was Megatron’s boss.



3. 2011 – Dark of the Moon:

Wait, no — Autobots were here in the ’60s. They were part of the Moon Landing cover-up.

Sentinel Prime was hiding on the Moon and had a secret deal with Megatron.



4. 2014 – Age of Extinction:

Surprise! They’ve been here for millions of years.

The Dinobots were on Earth during prehistoric times.

The Creators built them using “Transformium.”



5. 2017 – The Last Knight:

Also they fought in WWII.

Bumblebee was a war hero for the Allies.

Oh, and they helped Merlin in medieval times, gave him a magic staff, and brought along a three-headed robot dragon.

And the Earth? It’s actually Unicron, a planet-sized Transformer.

No one reacts to this like it’s the biggest revelation in history.




At this point, Bay isn’t building lore — he’s playing Mad Libs. Every film just throws in a new “Transformers were secretly involved in [insert major historical event here]” card until you wonder if they also helped invent pizza and taught Einstein how to do math.


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Pros & Cons

✅ A few action sequences that are at least choreographed well enough to follow.
✅ Anthony Hopkins chewing scenery like it’s his last meal.

❌ Cogman is hilarious for five seconds, then just unsettling.
❌ Bland, messy robot designs that make every fight a visual migraine.
❌ Lore is completely broken at this point.
❌ Merlin and the robot dragon are tonally absurd, even for this series.
❌ Earth is Unicron — and nobody reacts like that’s a big deal.


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Final Thoughts

At this point, this isn’t even Transformers — it’s Michael Bay’s medieval fever dream with robot cameos. Bleak tone, messy visuals, nonsense lore, and more tonal whiplash than a car crash. By the end, I just threw my hands in the air and said, “I’m done.”


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Rating: 1/10


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Spoilers Ahead! 🚨

Optimus floats through space, gets brainwashed by Quintessa, comes back as Nemesis Prime, and starts beating Bumblebee — until Bee speaks in his original voice and suddenly Optimus is fine.

The main villain is technically Quintessa, but Megatron also hangs around trying to grab Merlin’s magic staff, because apparently that’s now the source of world-ending power. Viviane is the only one who can wield it because she’s Merlin’s last descendant.

Anthony Hopkins’ Burton delivers a big lore speech, then gets abruptly killed by Megatron mid-sentence. Cogman survives, because of course he does.

The final fight has Cybertron smashing into Earth, Viviane using the staff to stop Quintessa, and Optimus delivering another empty monologue. Oh, and Quintessa’s still alive in the mid-credits scene, teasing a sequel that’s never coming.

And yes — the reveal that Earth is Unicron is dropped with all the drama of announcing you just bought milk.