Transformers: The Last Knight : Brilliantly choreographed action sequences in a convoluted plot ( Rating: **)

Film: Transformers: The Last Knight; Director: Michael Bay; Cast: Mark Wahlberg Josh Duhamel Stanley Tucci Anthony Hopkins Laura Haddock Jerrod Carmichael Isabela Moner Santiago Cabrera Glenn Morshower John Turturro and Tony Hale; Rating: **


The Transformers film series is basically mounted as a marketing tool to promote Hashbro Toys and it offers nothing meaningful cinematically.

Directed by Michael Bay this edition of the Transformers is no different from its previous four films. So you will know what you are getting in for -- a loud poorly stretched plot loaded with bland characters CGI laden action sequences mounted through senseless direction.

Like in all the other earlier Transformer films once again the world is in peril and there are large-scale battles that involve humans and two sets of giant shape-shifting mechanical creatures.

The film surprisingly begins on a promising note. In 484 AD England King Arthur s wizard Merlin (Stanley Tucci) forges an alliance with a group of twelve Transformers who have hidden on the Earth. He makes a deal with them to help King Arthur and his knights. He is given an alien staff that will protect them.

Around 1600 years later Optimus Prime voiced by Peter Cullen is searching for his maker. When he arrives on his home planet Cybertron he is put under the spell of the evil Quintessa voiced by Gemma Chan and told that he must destroy Earth so that Cybertron can exist. In order to do so he should have the alien staff.

Meanwhile Isabelle -- a survivor from the Battle of Chicago -- is rescued by Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) who comes into contact with an ancient talisman that puts him on the radar of the eccentric Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins). Bunton also needs Oxford professor Vivian Wembley (Laura Haddock) in order to find the alien staff that will stop the incoming Cybertron from destroying Earth. Also there is a military force called the TRF whose job is to spice up the plot.

Mounted with excellent production values the visuals are bright and dazzlingly glossy. The sound designed to accompany the visuals are equally reverberating and deafening.

The only thing that stands out in the film are the well-choreographed action sequences and the 3D visual effects.

By the end of it the film seems like an epic. But honestly the plot packed with too many sub-plots which are unnecessarily elaborated ends up like an incoherent mess that will leave even die-hard fans exhausted and confused.

Overall this film fails to deliver on the one thing that it blatantly promised: The story of The Last Knight.

--IANS
troy/rb/vt