Transformers The Last Knight.
Boy, what a mess. The film begins during the time of King Arthur and his roundtable knights. They're super effective warriors because they enlisted the help of a bunch of retro transformers who crashlanded on earth. Transformers are a formidable opponent for a 21st century military force, so image how fucked king Arthur's enemies were way back when. The mcguffin of the hour is Merlin's magic alien staff this time. It controls a metal dragon with three heads. In the present everyone hates the Transformers now for some reason, so the whole funky auto-bunch is hiding out in a scrapyard under the watchful eye of an exquisitely chiseled Marky Mark. There's also an antzy black guy and a plucky Latina kid mechanic. Neither of the two are ever relevant to anything but the film's protracted running time. Same with the Decepticons really. Don't quote me on this, but I believe they never accomplish anything. As is the series' tradition now, Optimus Prime fucks off into space early on. Is he gonna make a triumphant third act return? - You're gonna find out within the next 3 hours. The hot chick is British this time. She is an English history teacher who thinks the whole roundtable thing is complete gubbins, so of course she turns out to be Merlin's last living heir later on. Oh, the irony of it all. Speaking of British people: Sir! Anthony! Hopkins ! is also here, and I think he's related to Shia Labeouf. He has an ancient robot servant who's a bit of a sociopath. Him and his robo butler are the solitary high points of the film. The military makes a return as well and there's also a sorta paramilitary group who specializes in killing Transformers? The bad guy is an evil Cybertronian lady bot who wants to revive her destroyed homeworld by sucking something out of the earth which would of course destroy it. In order to accomplish that, she needs Merlin's staff. No idea why she needs it. No idea why she can even wield it as the film was rather clear about the fact that the staff could only ever be used by a member of Merlin's own bloodline. Maybe I missed something. The sheer amout of separate factions populating the film make for a very confusing watch.
There are some neat visuals in the film of course. I liked the WW1 tank transformer and the submarine one. Still, I've seen it all 4 times already, and every time it just got more stupid, more confusing, usually longer, yet somehow less and less energetic. The Last Knight feels, above all else, and despite the overbearing amounts of visual and aural stimuli it bombards the audience with, incredibly tired.
I'm not a Bay hater mind you. I unironically enjoyed a whole bunch of his movies, including the first Transformers.