Transformers: The Last Knight

Michael Bay's fifth Transformers film cost $217 million to produce and runs 154 minutes, but its real ambition is measured in centuries. The story reaches back to King Arthur's court, where Merlin made a deal with mechanical knights from Cybertron. That bargain reverberates into the present day, when Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg), a Texas inventor hiding Autobot refugees in a junkyard, gets pulled into a global chase for an ancient staff. He is joined by Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock), an Oxford professor who turns out to be Merlin's last living descendant, and Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), a historian who has spent decades cataloging the secret history of Transformers on Earth.

While Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) drifts through space under the control of a mysterious entity called Quintessa (Gemma Chan), the Transformers Reaction Force hunts down all robots, Autobot and Decepticon alike. The film grossed $605 million worldwide, making it the lowest-grossing entry in the series since 2011, and Paramount reportedly lost an estimated $100 million on the theatrical release. Critics savaged its convoluted mythology and exhausting spectacle, but the film introduced a twist that redefined the entire franchise: Earth itself is a slumbering Transformer named Unicron. [edit]

In 484 AD, the wizard Merlin approaches a group of giant robotic knights hiding in a cave. These are the Knights of Iacon, Transformers who fled Cybertron and now guard a powerful staff. They lend Merlin the staff to help King Arthur defeat the Saxons, then instruct him to hide it away for a future chosen one. The secret passes down through the Order of the Witwiccans, a society of humans who have protected the knowledge of Transformers' involvement in human history for centuries.

In the present day, the war between humans and Transformers has escalated into open persecution. A paramilitary unit called the Transformers Reaction Force (TRF) hunts down all alien robots, forcing Autobots like Bumblebee, Hound, Drift, and Crosshairs into hiding. Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg) runs a junkyard sanctuary for these refugees, scraping by as a fugitive inventor. In war-torn Chicago, he meets a teenage scavenger named Izabella (Isabela Merced) and her small Transformer friend Sqweeks. A dying knight gives Cade a mysterious Talisman before the TRF attacks. Colonel William Lennox (Josh Duhamel) helps Cade escape, but the pressure is mounting.

Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), the last living Witwiccan, recruits Cade and Oxford professor Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock) to find Merlin's lost staff. Viviane is revealed to be Merlin's direct descendant, the only person who can wield the staff. Meanwhile, in space, Optimus Prime encounters his creator, Quintessa (Gemma Chan), who claims to have built all Cybertronians. She corrupts him into Nemesis Prime and sends him to Earth to retrieve the staff for her. Back on Earth, Megatron has allied with Quintessa, and the Decepticons are also hunting for the staff. The race takes Cade, Viviane, and Burton from the English countryside to the wreckage of Chicago, with Cogman (Jim Carter), Burton's robot butler, driving them in a vintage car.

The stakes become clear: Cybertron is hurtling through space toward Earth, and whoever controls the staff will decide which planet survives. The staff can drain the life force of one world to restore the other. As the Autobots and Decepticons converge on Stonehenge, which serves as a portal and anchor point for Cybertron's approach, the final confrontation begins. Bumblebee, who has been mute since 2007, suddenly speaks with his original voice, breaking Quintessa's control over Optimus. Freed from corruption, Optimus rallies the Autobots and the surviving Guardian Knights for a desperate assault on Quintessa's chamber.[edit]