Review Roundup - Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT

For centuries they defended our world, but today, the alliance is over! Michael Bay's TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT, starring Mark Wahlberg, Josh Duhamel, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Haddock, Isabella Moner, Stanley Tucci, and John Turturro hits theaters nationwide today.

The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the SECRETS of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).

Let's see what the critics have to say:

Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times: "... if for some reason the drawn-out and incoherent battle scenes are what you liked about the earlier films, the climactic one here is still both of those things. The movie is shorter (by about 15 minutes) than the last one, though, and considerably more bearable."

Brian Truitt, USA Today: "The quality took a precipitous drop after the strong first live-action film in 2007, and while it's not as mind-numbingly offensive as the Revenge of the Fallen sequel, the new fifth installment Transformers: The Last Knight (* out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters nationwide now) is an exhausting marathon of complete nonsense. Even if you love alien robots punching each other while tossing out insipid one-liners, it's a painfully long two and a half hours where the biggest problem isn't a lack of plot but way too many of them."

Peter Travers, RollingStone: "My dream is that this whole tapped-out robo series will transform into a turd and audiences will have the good sense to flush it. That's an ending for you."

Owen Gleiberman, Variety: "It's all pleasingly spectacular, and also rather empty - at least, until Optimus Prime returns to his true self, his words spoken by Peter Cullen in a voice of such deep rich square nobility that, coming after nearly two-and-a-half hours of hellbent robot-clanking decadence, he seems a cathartically old-fashioned figure. He reminds you that there are moments when this series is capable of making you think that you like it."

Pete Hammond, Deadline: "Ultimately this is, as always, all about the Transformers, and fans won't be disappointed. One thing you can say for Bay is he gives the audience what it came to see and knows how to get on the largest screen imaginable"

Joshua Starnes, Comingsoon.net: Like a bunch of Transformer parts spontaneously reassembling themselves, all of these little things have to come together into a whole or they're just a random assortment of parts. And who wants to look at that for two and a half hours?

Mark Hughes, Forbes: "It's a big, entertaining, fun sci-fi action-adventure series that looks better than most other blockbusters in terms of the fantastic visual effects and exquisitely staged action sequences, and it justifies bringing all benefits of a theatrical experience to bear. No matter how big your TV is or how great your sound system is, you won't feel the same watching it at home as you do watching it in a cathedral of pop culture surrounded by hundreds of other laughing, applauding fans."

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