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An attempt to be deep

If you compare this movie to a wheel, it is certainly not running smoothly. It got holes in the plot and some things would have required more screen time or preparations in previous movies. This one just takes some stuff and throws it into the game, without any higher purpose. But, Transformers 5 is certainly a great-looking movie but it lacks spirit.

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Myth meets Fiction

England – The dark ages. Right at the beginning, you are thrown into a world full of a fight between Britons and Saxons. Knights are hit by gigantic projectiles and struck down in hand-to-hand combat.

In the middle of all the fighting is Arthur, great mysterious king of England, with his 12 knights of the round table. The only one that is missing is Merlin, the great magician of ancient time. This one is riding to gather help which hopefully turns the tide of the raging battle. While Arthur’s knights have lost all hope that Merlin will save them, Arthur himself is trusting the magician, who is, most of the times at least, drunk. That is indeed the first scene we see Merlin in. Taking a break from riding and drinking. But he got a secret which comes with a plan. He begs the twelve ancient knights of Iacon (that is a city-state and the capital of Cybertron), who stole a staff from the mad goddess Quintessa, which is so powerful that it can restore the whole planet, for help. Although Merlin is portraited as a drunkard, money-loving womanizer, he got the heart on the right place but is certainly no shining hero. The knights hand him the staff and combine into a giant three-headed-dragon with the warning that he needs to protect the staff because one day a great evil will come for it. With the help of the dragon, the Britons are able to be victorious this day and Merlin proved his control of “magic”.

This scene lets us see the difference between the first, “humble” part and the fifth one, who takes, like the fourth movie, a sharp and to be honest, quite uncomfortable turn in the plot and the shown world. This one starts with a huge battle, which takes the largest battle of the Anglo-Saxon invasion and the greatest victory of the Britons in this time and uses it for the start of a plot which is quite missing out on some points. Don’t get me wrong, I love history, I, kind of, love the Transformers-franchise and therefore I loved this movie the first I have seen it, but it will lose its magic, that history brings to it.

Object sexuality and child abuse

1600 years later in Chicago, 4 children decide to go into an “alien No-Go Zone” in which, of course, they encounter an ancient transformer, looking a bit like a Japanese samurai, which they think is dead. Against all odds, it is alive and moving. Shortly after it moved, an AT-ST like a drone from TRF, the military group against Transformers, spots them but is tricked by Izabella, a Hispanic orphan who lives in the contaminated zone. Despite the fact that the group is followed by a few of these drones, they head back to Izabellas hideout, where Canopy, a Transformer, is concealed. One kid is constantly flirting with Izabella, but she cuts him off with saying that her Transformer-buddy is her boyfriend, which, to me, is a bit strange to hear from a 14-year-old. After Canopy revealed itself, it is shot down by TRF and out of nowhere, Cade Yeager drives in, rescuing the kids (who are trying to hotwire his car and leave him apparently), shooting down the drone with the help of Bumblebee and takes the kids out. After a kid points out that there is a reward for turning him in,  Cade responses with “Do you wanna get punched in the face”, where my only thought was: “Has he really sunken that deep?” After Hollywood betrothed Mark Wahlberg with the role of he human-protagonist, he went from “I want to protect my daughter by being a helicopter parent” to “I want to punch young children who dare to challenge me”. His role, in my opinion, is just low-profile and I don’t like Cade Yaeger at all in his current state. He is missing out anything to like him.

After the kids, including Izabella, left, he heads back to the samurai-Transformer, who gives Cade a talisman, tells him to protect it from the goddess and attaches it to his arm. Samurai-bot didn’t make it though, and Cade is taken in by TRF, with Barricade watching. Bumblee approaches and is, supposedly, shot down into pieces. After a short break, he reassembles and takes out most of the soldiers. After a Mexican standoff, Lennox, known from previous parts, appears and tries to solve the situation. Then, Hound rolls in and they leave altogether. The leader of TRF’s strike team, Santos orders a sniper to shoot Bumblebee with a tracker.

Dear Mister Bay, are you really trying to say that a military group that has access to a nano-tracker is unable to identify some children BEFORE they enter a restricted area and are unable to detect a girl who lives inside this zone? Like, really? No wonder they are so ineffective. Also, why is there even this restricted area? For what reason? Can’t you just clear the area and move on? Why is that not possible? Also, what took you three years to find Cade Yaeger? This short scene reveals so many questions, it is questionable if it was even necessary to introduce the little girl Izabella, even because she is not even playing an important role in the raging war.

Also, there are two scenes in this chapter, which are so fucking awkward and lead to so much discomfort. First one, the one with Izabella saying that Canopy is her boyfriend, like what? Is it that the young generation thinks at first of relationships? Even with a robot? Like, 14-year-old-me would not think of even remotely that! Second, did you really order Mark Wahlberg to threaten a child? That was so uncalled for! Couldn’t he just spit a cool answer out and be done with it?

Examine all characters

Inside the military command of the US Army Lennox meets with General Morshower, and it is revealed that Barricade met with Megatron to talk about the staff and the talisman. During Megatrons angry speech, he starts to use his arm as a flamethrower, for no apparent reason at all. And this is only the third unexplained and unrelated thing in this movie, soon to be more. The only reason I can find is the visuals it provides. It also is shown that on different locations on earth horns are growing from the surface and steadily rising. Agent Simmons (known from the first three instalments of the franchise) keeps track of them, for an unknown reason, but is in contact with Burton, for again, unknown reason.  Somehow Megatron and the Decepticons are as well interested in the horns, snatched up two CIA agents and wants to make some deals with TRF. Mainly he wants some Decepticons released from prison in exchange for the agents.

In the meantime, Optimus Prime touched down on Cybertron, which in my understanding should have been destroyed in Part 3. The goddess Quintessa, the self-called maker of everything, expected him and after he tries to attack her for destroying his home (how please? Autobots and Decepticons started a war, not a mad goddess) he is caught by some tentacles and bitchslapped by the goddess, which reprograms his intentions, leaving him as her faithful servant and she sends him back to Earth, after revealing that Earth is also called “Unicron”, the ancient enemy of Cybertron and that the twelve guardian knights stole the staff and gave it to the humans. She orders him to get it back, so she can drain Earth and restore life on Cybertron.

During a game of polo, history-professor Vivian Wembley is introduced during making the last, deciding shot but is thrown off her horse. After her co-worker is complaining that he was open and she could have passed to him, she tells him that there is a reason that he is always open, which he counters with “There is a reason you are always single”, which is just an awkward line. But not enough of awkwardness, after Vivian arrives at the Oxford University, her workplace, she rams into a bulk of bicycles, which is just stereotypical. She holds her lesson, where she talks about the events of the beginning of the movie and states them as superstition and nonsense. During that, Sir Burton is watching her and, after returning to his car, the Transformer Hot-Rod, he tells him that he knows what to do now.

Meanwhile, on earth, more precisely England in Castle Folgan, Cogman, the Transformer-Butler of Sir Edmund Burton, a servant of the Order of Witwiccan, is informing him that finally the last knight has been chosen. This knight is Cade Yeager, who is hiding in a junkyard without having the last of the Autobots under control. Anarchy reigns and everything is brought out of control by Izabella, who smuggled herself with Cade and convinced him that she is a worthy (fourteen-year-old) asset and the arrival of TRF with the group of released Decepticons.

First Battle

After Decepticons raided the hideout, Cade and his group flee into an abandoned town, which is prepared for exactly that case, cause it is rigged. During the set up their defences, the Dino-Bots kick some TRF-asses and decimate the group radically. Angrily the TRF launches some drones to fight back. In the meantime the Decepticons arrived in the town, just to discover Izabellas little Transformer-friend and therefore she intervenes, causing Cade to attack. A massive battle erupts, where the Autobots defeat three Decepticons and forcing them into retreat. After they hastily left, the TRF-drones arrive. Being pushed back, Cade and Izabella are meeting Cogman, who they met with great hospitality and leading into Cade being tackled by a drone and nearly dying. Cogman though got very impulsive reactions for a butler, which is sometimes quite, how should I put it, annoying. After a chase with the drones, Cade is able to evade them, after a ridiculous stunt. Cogman tells Cade that he is chosen and the talisman will not leave him until his quest is fulfilled. Good that Yaeger doesn’t ask what his quest is.

After that, if I wanted to explain the movie in the fullness I just did, I would need to cut my brain out because it just gets ridiculous. Cogman takes Cade in a very old plane to England, leaving Izabella with the Autobots, the Decepticons and the TRF following them over the big pond. Vivan is pushed by her family to find a boyfriend and afterwards abducted by Hot-Rod, the Transformer car of Sir Burton. After Cade and Vivian arrived at Castle Folgan, they start to brabble like instantly and it is very clear from the first moment that they will end up in bed together.

What is the point of all this?

The English-hot-professor and the American-also-hot-wanna-be-inventor met in the saloon of the caste after Vivian changed in a disturbing tight dress and the movie continues with a tour through history. The watch that killed Hitler, Ancestors of the Order of Witwiccans, where, you might have guessed it, Sam Witwicky was also part in. Unknowingly. But not only the lost protagonist of the first three movies, but as well Catherine the Great, Washington, Shakespeare, Elizabeth II, Lincoln, the list is endless. Nearly all important figures of history were part in this order. Even the father of Vivian, which makes her a direct descendant of Merlin and the last wielder of the staff. It is also revealed that Bumblebee was with one unit that turned the tide of the second world war. Too bad, he can’t remember. but why can’t he? The final part in their history tour is the Round Table of Arthur which is in the basement of the castle. Burton then tells the tale of the last knight, which is Cade. Then, Vivian recites the qualities of a knight, which then leads to the question of his last intercourse, which makes even me feel uncomfortable. Like, why is it important when he fucked the last woman? Even that Vivian probes further and asks “What are you saving yourself for? Old age?” makes the whole situation even worse.

After that, he continues the tale of the staff and explains that only a descendant of Merlin himself can wield the staff and that they need to find it before Quintessa finds it. So, Cade and Vivian need to work together and they start at Vivian’s house in London. After Vivian introduces Cade to her family, they (oh what a surprise) think he is her boyfriend and they are off to the study, where they search for a clue to the staff, mixing it with strange sounds you would never make during a search for something so the family thinks they are having intense hardcore-sex up there and ruining the study in the process, but are rewarded with another clue to the staff, hidden inside a children’s book.

In the meantime, Agent Simmons and Sir Burton figured out where everything will be going down. It is connected to the first continent on earth, the supercontinent Pangaea where, in the centre, there is Stonehenge. After a high-speed-chase through London both meet up at the Navy Museum at the Port, enter an old submarine and Burton tells them that this isn’t his mission anymore and he will leave to pursue his own target. Somehow the old sub is a transformer and just jumps into the water, TRF starts to chase it with its own submarine, but they are outmanoeuvred, however, TRF follows them into a gigantic alien ship. Inside the sub, Cogman prepares a romantic dinner, just after the talisman went all over Cades body and Vivian bumps into this scene, completely stunned by his body and stumbling her way through. Even awkward to watch. I just love the way she plays complete overextension and confusion.

Sir Burton, however, is on his way to the Prime Minister and talks to him about the events about to happen, asking him to mobilize every asset they have. In the alien ship, Cade and Vivian are looking for the staff, followed by TRF and soon attacked by the guardian knights, all while Cybertron is approaching Earth. Our two good guys discover the sarcophagus of Merlin, but there is only a wooden staff in it. Cade throws it away angrily and suddenly, when Vivian touches it, it changes into the looked-for staff. Suddenly Optimus Prime comes out of nowhere and takes the staff without any opposition. After a big fight with Bumblebee, he is converted by the sound of Bees voice, but the guardian knights are there with the intention to kill him just because he is a traitor. However, Cade’s talisman transforms into a great sword and he rescues Optimus and gains the followership of the knights. In the following battle, the Decepticons kill Sir Burton inside the great stone circle for no reason, he doesn’t even have a reason to be there. Also, the Autobots are able to blast the ignition chamber up, so the transfer can’t happen and they regain control over the staff once again, while Bumblebee blasts the goddess into oblivion. But, surprise again, it is revealed that she is not dead but is suddenly in human form.

When I say the movie lacks plausibility I mean this scene: Why does Cade climb onto a big guardian knight? What reason is behind it besides introducing that the knights are alive? Or how does the big ship manoeuvre? How is Optimus rescued and relieved? Just by the sound of Bees voice? Really? Oh yeah, the solution of Bees voice: At the beginning, it is shown that Cade bought a new voice module so Bee can talk again but after his fight with Optimus it is revealed that he was able to talk all the way. That is so ripped of the first or second movie! (I just don’t remember). After watching it four times I just think it is written loveless and made even more loveless. I am disappointed that Bay wrote this franchise into oblivion. It would be best to let it die now.

Rating: 35/100

Pros:

+ Stunning visuals

Cons:

– Characters are staying blank

If you check, every character concurs insecure and unwilling

– Wasted Edmund Burton (greatest sin of all!)

For me, letting a character die without a reason is unforgivable

– Fuzz about Bumblebees voice and the solution of this plot is ridiculous

That just feels like “Let us stretch the movie!”

– Wasn’t Cybertron destroyed in “The Dark of the Moon”?

– The plot is completely loose

Holes in the plot are everywhere, there is no reason identifiable

– Sexual jokes are EVERYWHERE

They just let you feel uncomfortable and are a never ending sorrow.

– The movie lacks on plausibility

Why does character say what they say? Why do characters do what they do? There is no explanation given in most cases.