Along with that little nonscriptural nugget, the sinkhole of a plot drags in prehistory, via a set of Dinobots allied with the Autobots, King Arthur (Liam Garrigan), the biblical apocalypse and Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock), an English professor in present-day Oxford who becomes Cade's antipathy-at-first-sight love interest. Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), a loopy historian, explains all these connections in detail but unconvincingly.
As boredom sets in, viewers may take to counting the number of times Cullen pompously intones "I am Optimus Prime ..." Once is too often.
The film contains occult themes, much harsh but mostly bloodless combat violence, at least one use of profanity, a few milder oaths and much crude and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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Mulderig is on the staff of Catholic News Service.
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CAPSULE REVIEW
"Transformers: The Last Knight" (Paramount)
Ponderous sci-fi action flick in which a small-timeinventor (Mark Wahlberg) tries to save Earth from being destroyed in a collision with the home planet of a race of shape-shifting robots. Director Michael Bay's film finds the evil sorceress (Gemma Chan) who created the automatons scheming to revive their dying orb by desolating ours. The sinkhole of a plot drags in King Arthur (Liam Garrigan), the biblical apocalypse, an English professor (Laura Haddock) in present-day Oxford and a loopy historian (Anthony Hopkins) who explains all the connections in detail but unconvincingly. A steady stream of swearing makes this long, loud and dumb production, the fifth franchise entry for a series based on a line of Hasbro toys, inappropriate for those undemanding youngsters who might somehow enjoy it. Occult themes, much harsh but mostly bloodless combat violence, at least one use of profanity, a few milder oaths, much crude and crass language. The Catholic News Service classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
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CLASSIFICATION
"Transformers: The Last Knight" (Paramount) -- Catholic News Service classification, A-III -- adults. Motion Picture Association of America rating, PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.
