Rating summary

Movie		1.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

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

Reviewed by Martin Liebman September 20, 2017

There's a book series by an author named Robert Doherty called Area 51 that this reviewer once enjoyed way back when. The first few in the series are not particularly good books by any stretch of the imagination, but they delivered serviceable entertainment centered around aliens, the shadow government, that sort of thing (it's been a really long time; details are sketchy at best). But over time, the series grew increasingly more absurd, transitioning away from its central focus and folding in a highlight reel of human history and fantasy, making the story of aliens and government cover-ups somehow linked to ancient Egypt, The Holy Grail, Excalibur, and even vampires. The series plummeted from time-killing enjoyable to unreadable. That series parallels Director Michael Bay's Transformers franchise, once fresh and exciting (even if the robots looked nothing like they did in the 80s cartoons) but that has become a bloated, convoluted mess. To make matters worse, more head-scratching, and somehow even more boring, The Last Knight has folded in the legends of King Arthur, Merlin, and Stonehenge to its tale. It's an absurd movie, so absurd it's debatable as to whether it was made so intentionally, as if Michael Bay was asking, "is anyone still paying attention?" "Does story even matter?" "Am I really just making 150-minute CGI highlight reels?" And, in true Bay and Transformers fashion, spectacle still manages to completely drown out the plot, which is borderline indecipherable and nonsensical, anyway.

Here's a shot at a plot synopsis: Some kids enter a quarantined war zone but Mark Wahlberg saves the day and befriends a girl named Izabella (Isabela Moner). They bond because they know how to repair Transformers and they team up after he rescues her from near death. A government military task force known as TRF is also on mission for some reason or another. Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) returns to Cybertron and discovers his maker, Quintessa (voiced by Gemma Chan), who brainwashes him and sends him back to Earth to retrieve an ancient staff that's super-powerful. The Decepticons want the staff too. Lots of stuff blows up. The history of Transformers on Earth dates back many hundreds of years to medieval times, and key to that history in the present day is some sort of caretaker played by Anthony Hopkins and one of Merlin's ancestors, a woman named Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock). The legendary sword Excalibur makes an appearance, and a big battle is fought at Stonehenge because it's somehow involved in everything.

It might not even be that the plot is too stuffed and complex (though it is, most assuredly, ridiculous). It's that everything around it is too stuffed and complex. in typical Michael Bay fashion, the movie is overwhelmed by visual excess, whether that be digital excess or filmmaking excess. It's burdened by slow-burn scenes and character moments that add nothing to the narrative. It's hindered by untimely and overbearing humor. Right off the bat, even when Bay is attempting to establish a serious tone, which if in no other way is made known by the ominously low music, the moment is countered by random bits of humor that completely drain the sequence of its foreboding energy. Audiences might literally yell "shut up!" at the screen more than once, brought to a breaking point by the film's failure to grasp simple concepts like the importance of pacing, narrative flow, and keeping a check on structural excess. It's also likely that the audience's thoughts might drift to contemplating how it's even possible that a movie this large in scope, so kinetic, so complexly assembled, so painstakingly put together to make literally every shot in some way visually unique can be so absolutely slow and borderline unwatchable. It takes less than 30 minutes -- less than a fifth of the movie's runtime (and it might make the audience run out for a fifth of something else, too) -- to grow fatigued of the movie and wish for it to end. But, really, story doesn't matter. It's just a journey towards the inevitable large-scale action scenes. Nevertheless, this is one of the most tone-deaf, brain-busting, and butt-numbing films ever made. It's more bloated than any Pirates of the Caribbean film, which is really saying something, and it makes Dead Men Tell No Tales look brilliant by comparison.

There's really nothing good to say about the movie. Yes, the visual effects are spectacular. But they were spectacular back in 2007. Ho-hum. But that's what most people want from a Transformers film: complex visual effects and huge action pieces. The movie does deliver, though action feels more limited, smaller, somehow, even if the stakes are higher and the Earth is on the brink of ruin with millions of lives at stake. None of it matters, though. Even as the film attempts to backtrack and build lore, pushing it back to the days of Arthur and Merlin just seems ridiculous. A sixth film is in the works, though Bay has claimed that he's done with the series. That said, there are no doubts that his fingerprints will be all over whatever comes next, ensuring a continuity of stupidity for a franchise that has sunk so low that there appears to be no way to rebound without sinking even further into narrative nonsense. It sure would be nice to see a reboot (not the fake reboot that was Age of Extinction), a true re-imagining that would essentially recreate the 80s cartoon at the same level of visual complexity these films have enjoyed. Maybe someday. In the meantime, though, audiences have only yet another in this style, plus a Bumblebee spinoff starring WWE Superstar John Cena, to anticipate. Mercy! Uncle! Tap out! Make it stop!

Transformers: The Last Knight 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The included screenshots are sourced from a 1080p Blu-ray disc. Watch for 4K screenshots at a later date.

The digitally photographed Transformers: The Last Knight arrives on 2160p UHD sourced from a 2K digital intermediate. The disc includes both HDR10 and Dolby Vision color formats. Unfortunately, we are currently not able to review Dolby Vision but we are studying equipment options and will be upgrading in the near future. Paramount's upscaled 4K presentation offers a fairly standard uptick in image quality over the Blu-ray, which is itself very strong. There's a tangible increase in detail. Faces are a particular beneficiary, where pores and wrinkles and moles and facial hair appear more precisely defined and sharp. Environments and digital Transformer complexities enjoy a boost as well, but it's in human close-up where the differences are most noticeable. The UHD doesn't have quite the same sense of surface smoothness in some spots as the Blu-ray, though there remains a modest sense of flatness to the picture. HDR color enhancements give a little more depth to the already-hot Michael Bay palette. Flesh tones are deeper and, by extension, warmer. Lush English green grasses enjoy improved color depth, more nuanced and less showy but still plenty vibrant. Black levels hold impressively deep, perhaps most obvious during a flashback nighttime battle outside a Nazi-occupied building. Aspect ratios do shift throughout the film between various sizes, mostly around the larger format rather than a more infrequent ~2.35:1 ratio. Blu-ray.com's aspect ratio calculator measures an average of 1.90:1.

It's worth noting that playback proved troublesome beyond the usual "no signal" handshake issues I experience that are certainly equipment, not disc, related. The review Samsung UBD-K8500 player twice displayed an error message that stated "Cannot play this disc. The disc does not meet the specifications" when attempting to load from the home screen. Subsequent retires resulted in disc playback. The disc also froze up twice, both right at film's end, once at the 2:24:54 mark and, after restarting and skipping ahead to a few second prior to that timeframe, again at the 2:25:14 mark. So I was not able to view the very end of the movie on the UHD format. The disc appeared to have no significant wear or scratches, and was from a factory sealed retail copy provided by Paramount. It was more than likely limited to my disc rather than something that will be a widespread issue.

Transformers: The Last Knight 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Transformers: The Last Knight's Dolby Atmos soundtrack delivers the goods. Fans expect an intense, layered, and clear listening experience from the Transformers series, and that's exactly what they get. The track really needs no review. It hits all the checklist points. Deep, robust, and robotic-pitched bass explodes with regularity, saturating the stage with an intense low end frequency. Surrounds run wild with flying debris, bullets, scuffling humans, lumbering robots, missiles, and all sorts of mayhem rushing through the listening area with precision, detail, and seamless immersion. Music is triumphantly potent, lifelike, and finely detailed throughout. The Atmos component is used with regularity. Merlin's greeting to the hidden Transformers in England, speaking into the empty engine that serves as an entrance to their makeshift hiding place, offers an intense reverberation. Haunting sounds around Cybertron linger about the top (and elsewhere). One of the best moments comes in a sequence midway through the film when the characters gather around the Round Table and Anthony Hopkins' servant robot Cogman sings and plays the organ; the sense of absolute stage saturation is amazing. The final battle delivers an onslaught of sound, most of which in some way engages the top end, often with intensity but usually in a complimentary, not discrete, manner. Dialogue is unsurprisingly clear and refined even through the chaos. If only the movie wasn't such a chore to watch; the track is amazing.

Transformers: The Last Knight 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Transformers: The Last Knight contains no extras on the UHD disc; all supplements may instead be found on the bundled and dedicated second Blu-ray disc. A UV/iTunes digital copy code is included with purchase.

• Merging Mythologies (1080p, 19:53): A detailed look at how the film intersects with the Arthurian era and World War II. It includes narrative details, crafting the ancient Transformers, props and set pieces, casting, and more.
• Climbing the Ranks (1080p, 8:48): This supplement examines the military characters who appear in the film and their role in the story, actor preparations for the parts, shooting intense action scenes, working alongside real Navy SEALs, filming locations, and more.
• The Royal Treatment: Transformers in the UK (1080p, 27:04): An in-depth look at shooting key scenes in England. It's a broad, all-encompassing piece that focuses on far more than filming locations and offers some interesting anecdotes, such as how the crew had to be careful not to break any treasured antiquities at some of the locations.
• Motors and Magic (1080p, 14:47): This piece takes a close look at several key characters: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Hot Rod, Hound, Crosshairs, Drift, Cogman, Sqweeks, Day Trader, Megatron, Barricade, and Mohawk.
• Alien Landscape: Cybertron (1080p, 7:15): A look at the role Quintessa and the Transformers' home world play in the film.
• One More Giant Effin' Movie (1080p, 6:45): A rapid-fire look at the Bayhem on the set.

Transformers: The Last Knight 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Transformers: The Last Knight is a big-budget embarrassment. Sure it's slick, yes it's loud, and yes, that was Merlin and King Arthur. In a Transformers movie. Whatever. Paramount's UHD release delivers a high quality image that bests the Blu-ray, and the Atmos soundtrack (and three cheers to Paramount for including it across the board on Blu-ray, UHD, and Blu-ray 3D) is fantastic. All extras are carried over on the dedicated second Blu-ray disc. Fans should consider springing for this release over the Blu-ray.