Note: This was originally published at The Comeback in June 2017.

Virtually nothing in Transformers: The Last Knight makes any sense, but does that matter? If you’ve seen the previous four films in this series — or even just seen one or two of them — you know that attention to story and detail isn’t a priority for director Michael Bay and the various writers who have pounded out scripts for these toy-inspired assaults on the senses.

Yet The Last Knight almost seems to double down on devolving into complete nonsense during its two-and-a-half-hour run time. Using the word “devolving” is probably generous, implying that the movie actually started out resembling something coherent and compelling. But I’ll admit that I was with this movie for the first 60 to 90 minutes.

Sure, the left side of my brain was saying to me, “You know none of this makes any sense, right?” But the right side of my brain was still enjoying what I was seeing on screen. No matter what you think of his movies, Bay is a master visual stylist who taps into something primal with his imagery.

Yes, he’s become a cliché in many respects. There’s not a gunfight or woman’s backside that he won’t linger on lovingly with his camera. But the man still frames silhouettes against a sunset and shoots muscle cars roaring down the road or fighter jets streaking through the sky better than anybody. That stuff just looks cool. Truly, no one does it better, even if it’s long past time that Bay move on from the giant robots in disguise clashing with one another and treating the earth like their sandbox.

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