Mediocre Movie Month 2016 Bonus Round: Some Thoughts on the "Transformers: The Last Knight" Trailer

Gotta grab some of that social media blitz while the views are fresh!

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Directed by Michael Bay
Produced by Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Ian Bryce
Written by Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Ken Nolan, Story by Akiva Goldsman (abandon all hope, ye who enter here)

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Isabela Moner, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro

If you haven't already, I reviewed all four Transformers movies for this series last year. Here's a link, it's significantly less painful than sitting through all four in one day.

Insert Game of Thrones joke.

So the trailer starts with a promise of the best film idea ever, which is that of a damned medieval Transformers movie. Then it transitions between shots of Nazi Germany, a ruined football arena, and some other images of various Transformers hanging around.

By the way, these sequences are accompanied by narration by Sir Anthony Hopkins, because Westworld didn't contain enough robot shenanigans (go watch Westworld, though, for real).

"Akiva, some punk on the internet is saying mean things about us."
"It's okay, Michael, here's some cocaine to dry your tears."

Hopkins's narration is your standard high-minded Michael Bay fluff, talking about two species being at war, how two worlds are colliding, and how Optimus Prime left earth (because he flew away at the end of Trans4mers). We get some tease about why the Transformers keep showing up on Earth over shots of Omicron (!) eating the moon, then the standard Inception BWAAAAAAAA over action scenes and explosions. The trailer ends with Optimus Prime saying "Forgive me" as he seemingly kills Bumblebee, and then the promise of more mediocrity to come.

As far as trailers go it's fairly effective. It bears the standard stylistic choices of the current zeitgeist, from the quick-cuts, to Inception noises, to the editing synchronizing all the punches and gunshots to the score. Anthony Hopkins has a sufficiently sinister voice, but after seeing his stellar performance in Westworld that's really all this makes me want to watch.

Whether the movie is any good...ha! Got you. Let's not pretend this is going to be any different than the other four Bay-a-thons. Though the trailer was fine, I learned long ago from Man of Steel that a trailer is absolutely not an indication of the movie's quality.

However, let's be honest here and have some predictions:

God is dead, and we pulled the trigger.

Tomato-Meter: 23%

Box Office: $1.312B

Accolades:
Teen Choice Awards Choice Summer Movie nominee (award ends up going to Emojimovie: Express Yourself, releasing August 4, 2017)
Golden Raspberry for Worst Director (Michael Bay)

These violent delights have violent ends.

Verdict:
Oh, you know I'm going to sit and watch this trainwreck. Whether I pay for it or not is none of your concern.

But really, go watch Westworld on HBO. The first season just wrapped up so all you binge-watching babies have no excuse.