TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT

YOU WANT SPOILERS? WE'VE GOT SPOILERS

You want to know how much of an absolute starscreaming mess the new Transformers movie is? You want to know how badly you can take a spectacularly dumb idea and stretch it way beyond breaking point for the fifth time? You want to know how you can take a cartoon aimed at easily distracted children and, er, transform it into a howling melange of slo-mo explosions, shouting and destructo porn? You want to know how to avoid the Does Not Compute madness? The last one's easy: just don't go. It's a Michael Bay film, after all.

You want to know how much of a mess Transformers: The Last Knight is? Guy Ritchie only claimed the trophy for Worst King Arthur Movie Of 2017 for a few weeks before Michael Bay told him to hold his beer. The fun kicks off in the Dark Ages with a drunken Merlin (Stanley Tucci) obtaining a giant robot dragon from a wrecked spaceship in order to help King Arthur in battle against someone or other (either it was never mentioned or bellowed briefly into noise). He is also given an alien superweapon which - surprise! - is being sought years later by assorted factions. In the present day, Cade (Mark Wahlberg) is still covertly looking after outlawed Autobots in an open junkyard in the desert somewhere, and ducking in and out of what's left of Chicago after the last act of Transformers 3 to collect more bits and pieces. Meanwhile Optimus Prime has arrived back on the remnants of Cybertron and is immediately possessed by the evil Quintessa who wants to revive her planet by absorbing Earth.

Meanwhile Anthony Hopkins is bumbling about as the 12th Earl of Folgan, last of a secret society of Witwiccans (those who have known about the Transformers' existence throughout history) who have awaited the arrival of Merlin's last descendant as the only one who can wield the Staff Of Cybertron, and that last descendant turns out to be uptight history and philosophy professor Laura Haddock, now thrust into a chalk-and-cheese will-they-won't-they romance with Wahlberg. There's also a kid with a friendly pop-eyed blue robot sidekick, an army squad seeking to track Wahlberg down and recover this superweapon staff at all costs, and evil Decepticon leader Megatron who wants the weapon for himself and his associates... Cue scenes of things blowing up, things erupting, thirty-foot metal things beating seven million bells out of each other over and over again.

You want to know how much of a mess this film is? Quite apart from the glaring distraction of having the film change its aspect ratio literally every other shot, from 1.85 "normalvision" to 2.35 scope and back again with every cut; quite apart from the fact that much of it is basically The Da Vinci Code (!); quite apart from the all-over-the-shop plotting (We're in a junkyard! Now we're in a ghost town! Now we're in Cuba! Now we're at Stonehenge! Now we're in a nuclear submarine! Now we're in space!); quite apart from the fact that Michael Bay's trousers are clearly throbbing with glee at every chance to do those slow-motion explosions with stuntmen and/or smashy alien robots corkscrewing balletically across the screen; quite apart from the comedy relief clunks like someone dropping a set of sledgehammers down a long staircase; quite apart from the fact that it don't make no sense (what were the Transformers transforming into before humanity invented trucks, jet fighters, sports cars and photocopiers for them to disguise themselves as?); quite apart from the fact that it's One Hundred And Forty Nine Thundering Minutes Long? This is how much: it's like a vivid but narratively impenetrable dream that you can sense draining from your mind within seconds of waking up, you can feel yourself forgetting it. By the time I'd got to the car park I already knew whole chunks of the film had faded from my mind.

On the plus side.... Anthony Hopkins is clearly entering into the spirit of proceedings and looks to be having some fun with it, and for some reason Bay has stopped pointing the camera at smokin' hot chicks the way he used to: none of those scenes of Megan Fox soaping a motorcycle or following Rosie Huntington-Whitely's bum up a staircase. There's also a bit less of the city smashing and knocking skyscrapers into one another like a set of dominoes that turned up in earlier Transformers instalments. That's about enough to save it from being actively hateful, but not enough to make it actively worth watching. I mean, if you like Michael Bay's Transformers movies anyway, and respond to the incoherent action scenes and deafening soundtrack of kabooom explosions and Steve Jablonsky scores that make Batman Vs Superman look and sound like Hannah And Her Sisters, there's certainly ten quid's worth of entertainment to be had because Bay isn't changing the formula to any significant degree. And why would he?

Transformers: The Last Knight isn't any good: it's probably on a level with the last one and frankly that's probably as good as these movies are ever going to get. It ends with a mid-credits sting that teases the inevitable sequel (it's already scheduled for 2019, though both Wahlberg and Bay have suggested they're not returning), and they've already announced a Bumblebee spinoff for next year. Oh joy.

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