Many Transformers fans have mixed feelings about Michael Bay. On one hand there is no denying that the filmmaker — notorious for focusing on elaborate action sequences while ignoring anything resembling cohesive storytelling — has helped take the franchise into the stratosphere commercially. On the other, his films after the promising first installment in 2007 have only grown worse to the point where they are unwatchable without a couple of painkillers every 30 minutes washed down with a glass of motor oil.

At least Transformers (2007) had something of a moving storyline, interesting characterisation, good humour, and an interesting hook — a boy and his first car (that turned out to be the Autobot Bumblebee). Transformers also paid respect to the lore by offering characterisation for the Autobots and Decepticons that was familiar to fans of the comic books and cartoons. But since 2007, it has felt like Michael Bay could give less than a damn about the Transformers themselves. Sure, with every new cartoon and comic book, the Transformers have been reinvented, but they’ve never strayed too far from the core. On the other hand, Michael Bay began selecting characters for his films purely because he liked their name, and changed them visually and in terms of character beyond recognition, purely because it served his paper thin plotlines. These were only designed to take viewers between gratuitious shots of everyone’s rear ends, and gratuitious shots of things exploding. Heck, there was a scene in one of the films where water exploded seemingly without reason. Why? Because Michael Bay, that’s why.

After the terrible Revenge of the Fallen (2009), the slight improvement in Dark of the Moon (2011) wasn’t enough to convince anyone that these movies were going to truly get better. Then came the awful Age of Extinction (2014) where the last 30 minutes were pure noise, and it was so bad that had it run any longer, the group of three I went with to the cinema would have won gold for projectile vomiting at the Olympics.

The Last Knight is better than the two most recent Transformers movies but it is still a train wreck

It became evident that for Michael Bay, the Transformers movies aren’t really Transformers movies, but robot-fight-porn. The sort of movies you watch for cheap thrills but are embarrassed to be seen getting off on. This is why it is surprising that the latest, The Last Knight is better than the last three. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still nowhere near good, but it’s more like a train wreck rather than the 9/11 of movies, which is pretty much what the Revenge of the Fallen and Age of Extinction were.

What makes The Last Knight better? Anthony Hopkins, of course. Here, the decorated actor plays Sir Edmund Burton, an astronomer and historian who is part of a secret society sworn to protect the history of the Transformers on Earth. He explains to us that the robots have been around for generations, from the days of King Arthur to the World Wars, and have taken the side of good in these conflicts for the betterment of man.

Of course, this is all a load of derivative baloney, but Hopkins’ dulcet tones help sell the baloney as if it were a 500 dollar steak. If there is no other evidence that Hopkins is one of the greatest actors of our times, it’s that he can make us care about a needlessly convoluted and nonsensical script. It also helps that the film has some side-splittingly funny moments. These come at the hands of Hopkins’ robot butler Cogman (Jim Carter), who has anger issues, and has excellent chemistry with the actor. Some of the funnier scenes come when Hopkins is explaining the backstory to Autobot ally Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) and Oxford professor Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock), who are both more connected to the mystical roots of the Transformers than they realise, and Cogman unexpectedly begins playing dramatic organ music in the background.

What’s more, the action-packed finale isn’t overbearing either, and Bay seems to exercise the tiniest bit of restraint. I particularly liked a touching scene between Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl), which recalled the heart the first film had.

But as I said, The Last Knight is still a train wreck. To start with, the main storyline is yet another regurgitation of the original movie. Once more the Transformers are fighting over a powerful artifact with the fate of the Earth and Cybertron depending on it. How many times are the writers going to rinse and repeat the same plot? Other issues include some flat humour (until Cogman turns up), the bastardisation of one of the greatest Transformers characters Hot Rod, and characters that exist for no reason at all, as far as the narrative is concerned.

After the Age of Extinction, Michael Bay promised fans that he was leaving the franchise. With The Last Knight, he’s said it again. Let’s hope he keeps his word this time.

Rated PG-13 for violence and intense sequences of sci-fi action, language and some innuendo

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 2nd, 2017