Transformers: The Last Knight - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Transformers: The Last Knight


Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Being that I only reviewed the Blu-ray of The Last Knight back in 2017 when I started here, I figured time to spruce up the old review and check out the 4K UHD disc as it is now included in the massive 6 film Steelbook collection coming out, and will be refererenced here.

I was the perfect target audience for the Transformers franchise, as this reviewer grew up with more of the original action figures than you could shake a stick at, and was one of those little kids who drug himself out of bed every Saturday morning so that he could plop down in front of the TV in his whitey tighteys and watch reruns of the show. I know that Michael Bay’s first Transformers is not widely received as a masterpiece (or even that representative of the cartoons), but I still loved the movie to death in theaters. It came out right as the Blu-ray and HD DVD format war was going on, and used as a demo disc for home theaters all over the world. Then the second movie came out. Revenge of the Fallen had SOME good points to it, but was largely a flop, and the third movie was only marginally better than the second entry. At that point we though the franchise was dead. Megan Fox was gone from as Sam’s girlfriend, and Shia la Doofus had publicly stated that he was done. Then for some insane reason, Michael Bay was asked to come back and do a FOURTH movie, this time with Marky Mark as the lead human. While it may seem insane to us, it really wasn’t for Paramount, as the three films before it has raked in countless hundreds of millions of dollars of profit for them. Transformers: Age of Extinction was a 13 hour (or at least it seemed that way) assault on your senses, and I begged to all that was holy that this would be the final nail in the coffin, but the ancient gods of malice and hate has seen it worthy to unleash another near 3 hour punishment upon us in the form of The Last Knight.

I actually was VERY reticent to see this in theaters as I had witnessed the pain and suffering caused by Age of Extinction a few years back but when my best friend offered to buy me a chipotle burrito AND pay for my ticket (he was bored that day) I reluctantly agreed to go. Well, it didn’t take long before our jaws were hanging down to our knees and every few minutes we would look over at each other with these looks on our faces that blatantly said “did we just see what I think we saw?” while listening to the non stop sonic assault. I mean, you have to wonder how Michael Bay got the script past studio executives when you have Anthony Hopkins making insane comments, a transformer singing Ludacris’s “Move ****, Get out the way ****” while driving in London traffic, OR the fact that this same transformer ends up side kicking a live Tuna on a submarine (yes, I had to rewind that scene 2-3 times just to comprehend it). I guess at this point he’s been given carte blanche to do what he wants, as the money just keep rolling in, despite racist overtones, inane plot devices, and swirling vortex of action that almost no one can make sense of.

The film’s biggest problem is that it has a bit TOO many plot points and stories. The film feels like about 4 different movies all crammed into one 2 hour and 35 minute time frame, ranging from ancient Arthurian legends, a revenge story dealing with the creator of the Transformer race, humanity trying to survive in a post apocalyptic world where Transformers and Decepticons are waging war with humanity caught in the middle, AND your typical adventure story. Well, we at least got Merlin and Arthur for a few minutes at the beginning, before we go back to the future, but the whole Arthurian legend aspect of the movie was hilariously hackneyed, and somehow they even found a way to blend in Unicron into the picture (although as nothing more than a short plot device that just went nowhere).

As much as I can barely summarize the movie I will try. A couple of kids go into a quarantine zone (an old Transformer conflict zone) where they come under fire from the now “bad” human military forces who are trying to wipe out any and all transformer influence. There they get targeted by a drone only to have Marky Mark come in and save the say with a transformer hand gun and a smart mouth. Izabelle (Isabela Moner) glomps onto Marky Marky (Cade from the previous film) as she can fix stuff like he can, and hangs out with the new hunted felon (I guess he’s a wanted man for helping Optimus Prime in the last movie). However, humanity is under attack even MORE as the war between the Decepticons and the Autobots has pretty much ravaged the world, with more and more lost members of their dying race coming to earth and just blowing up stuff in their conflict. Megatron somehow manages to make an appearance (there’s some bizarre Mad Max style scene where he’s picking and choosing what decipticons go free to help him in a mission that makes zero sense), and Optimus Prime goes back to his home world of Cybertron (or what’s left of it) and meets their make, Quintessa, who wants to use him to rebuild their world. Even at the expense of Earth (which turns out to be home to yet ANOTHER major player). I guess there’s a staff of super duper transformer power (what happened to the All Spark?) that can make Cybertron whole again and now EVERYONE wants it. Anthony Hopkins plays some whacked out head of a mysterious group of caretakers for the staff (and they very uncleverly weave in Sam Witwicky into it), then things blow up, transformers die, more things blow up, and the movie ends. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. A giant mess of about 4 different movie’s worth of plot points all crammed together into the SEMBLANCE of a script.

I can’t say that there was any real ACTING in the film if you think abut it. Marky Mark just ran around looking buff and yelling at things, while everyone else just screamed while Michael Bay blew things up in slow motion. At least there wasn’t any underage teen girls this movie where the camera was focusing in on her butt. Or her boyfriend sneering to her father about how he was having sex with her when he was over 18 and she wasn’t because of some law concerning when they STARTED to date (that whole scene just boggled the mind in Age of Extinction). The best thing I can say about The Last Knight is that the movie DOES finally end, and there is hope for those who have started it.




Rating:

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




4K Video: Video:

Being that The Last Knight was shot digitally on hi rez cameras, it looks superb in 4K UHD. Even though it was finished in 2K and then uprezzed, it still looks fantastic in 4K with all of the Dolby Vision and HDR10 enhancements. Some 6 years later it still looks great, and one of the bestter early 4K UHD transfers out there. The Blu-ray was nothing short of picture perfect, and this one is a tangible and noticeable upgrade over the limitations of the 1080p discs. No banding, no crush, GORGEOUS colors that absolutely pop off the screen, but there is a weird sense of flatness to the image that translates on both Blu and 4K UHD. I’m not sure what it is, but the Bay film looks sort of two dimensional, and I’ve never been able to figure out why. Still, a fantastic looking digital disc, and if you’ve seen any of the previous Transformers films, you’ll know exactly what to expect.







Audio:

Again, this is a Transformers movie. Were you expecting anything less than an audio maelstrom? If you were expecting an audio treat, then you’re in the right place, as The Last Knight’s Dolby Atmos track is a non stop storm of audio activity. Dialog is well placed up front and evenly balanced with the rest of the mix, but we’re here for the surround activity, swirling mayhem of action and punishing LFE that just doesn’t let up. Gunshots ring with authority, and LFE is basically part of each and every shot. The bass hits HARD and DEEP, once again giving us several scenes that really dip into the teens, vibrating every single wood board and stud in your house in a sustained low end shot. Surrounds are given a LOT of activity, from the sounds of machine parts moving against each other, to the swirling of the ocean as an ancient space craft emerges from the deep. Overheads throw with energy as Cybertron’s fractured frame crashes into portions of the Earth, and military vehicles rush by over the top of you. It’s a whirlwind action movie, and the Dolby Atmos track fills the channels with an incredible sense of immersion and intensity that is worthy of the Transformers legacy.




Extras:

• Merging Mythologies – Explore the secret TRANSFORMERS history
• Climbing the Ranks – Military training
• The Royal Treatment: Transformers in the UK
• Motors and Magic
• Alien Landscape: Cybertron
• One More Giant Effin' Movie

Final Score: ​

Transformers: The Last Knight is a 2 hour and 35 minute exercise in patience and drudgery. A painful viewing experience it once again proves that the series has pretty much been done since the third film. Michael Bay seems to have no more excitement for the series, and is content with throwing CGI vomit against the screen while simultaneously letting his writers run a muck through the fields of letters, throwing nonsensical plot lines against the paper and hoping that SOMETHING sticks. There has rarely been a time that I left the theater AND my own home viewing wondering what in blue blazes I had just watched. A big budget embarrassment, The Last Knight hopefully acts as the final nail in the coffin of a series that has just been stretched out way past its expiration date. The disc itself is pure eye and ear candy, but that doesn’t say much when the movie itself is such a chore to sit through.




Technical Specifications:

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock
Directed by: Michael Bay
Written by: Art Marcum, Matt Holloway
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC (1.90:1 HEVC for IMAX shots)
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English DD 5.1, English DD 2.0, French (Canadian), Spanish, Portuguese DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 155 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 26th, 2017

Recommendation: Skip It