Last night, we went to SM Megamall to watch the latest Transformers movie, Transformers: The Last Knight.

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (NO SPOILERS)

Well, true to expectations, it was a lousy movie with Michael Bay’s version of science and history. All explosions and not much sense. The words Transformers and King Arthur’s Camelot in the same sentence would make anyone with a lick of sense cringe. So many facepalms in this movie. We were almost certain that it was a really bad movie, but we watched it anyway just because we were curious to see how bad it really was.

Anyway, I was trying to tell my sister the story. She had no intention of seeing it anymore after I told her how bad it was, so she just wanted me to tell her the gist of the story. I tried explaining the story, but a lot of it just made no sense. She’d ask why and I’d just answer “Basta yan yung nangyari. Basta ganyan. Ewan ko (That’s what happened. Don’t ask me, I don’t know why.”. To be honest, I can’t even remember what happened during the last movie except Mark Wahlberg kept insisting that he was an inventor. I usually remember the endings of movies I see, but apparently Transformers 4 was so bad and made no sense either so it just didn’t stick in my mind.

So coming into this movie, I really had no recall why Optimus Prime was gone or what happened to Mark Wahlberg’s character. But yeah, okay, I can roll with that. And then they add this whole King Arthur Knights of the Round Table thing. I mean, just whyyyyyyy…. For the love of all that’s chivalrous, please don’t ruin Camelot. Ooops.. too late. Yeah, I know that there was a Transformers cartoon episode where they went medieval, but…

But okay, I can still get into the story even if it’s full of holes. And then we see a picture cameo of Shia Labeouf’s Sam Witwicky, and I suddenly miss the Transformers movies with Shia and Megan Fox. At least during those movies, Shia and Megan were fun to watch.

For me, those two characters and Shia’s family were the only things that made the movie bearable and funny. Shia has great comedic timing and facial expressions, and Megan’s character was cool and doesn’t come off as a bitch. Too bad Shia sort of went weird recently. And I found the female characters after Megan Fox not very likeable.

I don’t know what that picture of Shia was supposed to mean – a cheap shot from Michael Bay, I’m guessing. Is showing his picture supposed to put an end to his character’s story, like saying he’s dead? But for me, it just raises more questions like “What happened to Sam?” and made me want to explore the connections between Sam and the ancient Order of Witwiccans further.

How do I explain this movie? The beginning tries to be Gladiator, then there’s a borg queen type character, there’s the typical “only a descendant of so and so can save us” thing, and the final battle is similar in plot to Transformers 3’s. And there are too many corny speeches from Optimus Prime! Things happen (or don’t happen) based on “Michael Bay science”. There are lots of explosions, lots of robots fighting, lots of speeding cars.

Where did this robot come from? I don’t care anymore. How did that thing just suddenly…? Who the hell cares anymore at this point. Don’t even try to make sense of what’s happening.

The Order of Witwiccans was actually very interesting to me, but the movie favored more explosions and other nonsense instead of exploring that angle more.

Also, FYI, gunpowder did not yet exist in England during the time when King Arthur supposedly lived. About 800 -1,000 years or so off. I mean, I don’t expect this movie to be historically accurate, but something that off is just ridiculous. But even in the 5th Century, Michael Bay must have his explosions.

Can you guess who the last knight is???? Hahaha, it wasn’t who we all assumed it would be. And when I tell people who it is, they go whaaaaaaatttt??? I won’t tell you. No spoilers. 😀

I am easy to please when it comes to movies, and all those plotholes can easily be forgivable if it was even remotely fun to watch, like the Fast and Furious movies. F&F had some heart. At least they made me care a little about the characters.

This movie was just bad. I don’t care one bit if all the characters died. The only people in this franchise I cared a little about were Shia & Megan’s characters, and the Witwicky parents, maybe. And they’re not here. I used to like Josh Duhamel’s character, but I don’t even know what his character is doing in this movie, is he a friend, is he a foe? Bah, forget him. I don’t even care about the robots at all and actually found most of them annoying except for the cute Wall-E robot.

The cartoons were so much better, at least young me cared about the characters there (the Autobot side)!

Verdict: This movie is terrible.

SM GIFT CARD FIASCO

But the quick movie review is not the only one I wanted to share today. Last Christmas 2016, J received an SM Gift Card from an office Kris Kringle gift exchange.

He’s not the shopping type so that gift card has been in his wallet for a while until he remembered it the other day. He checked the SM gift card kit to see where else he could use the gift card. He saw that he could use it at SM Cinema, so he planned to use his SM Gift Card to buy our tickets for Transformers: The Last Knight. Normally, we use our e-Plus card so we can avoid the long lines.

When we got to the SM Megamall Cinema cashier, she told us that they did not accept the SM Gift Card. According to her, they have not received any briefing or memo about accepting SM Gift Cards at SM Cinema.

We were like, what? Why? But it’s clearly stated on the brochure:

She called someone on the phone and they confirmed that they did not accept the SM Gift Card.

We ended up just paying cash for our movie since showing the gift card brochure to the cashier did nothing but get deadma. If whoever she called said they did’t accept SM gift cards, all our arguing otherwise wouldn’t change it. It will just waste our time. I mean, it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s a disappointing customer experience for us since it was very clearly stated on the SM Gift Card kit that it can be used at SM Cinema, and then they wouldn’t let us use it there.

J was quite annoyed since it was his gift card, and because he’s a typical guy, he’s not really into shopping. Our weekly movie watching was the only thing he could see himself using the gift card for. Sure, he can just give me the gift card to use, but that’s not the point.

We called the SM Gift Card hotline to double check but the SM Gift Card rep confirmed that it can’t be used at SM Cinema, and that she will just give us a list of places where we can use the SM Gift Card. Haay, sus. Then why have it printed in the brochure? Paramihan ba ng logo? Kailangan mapuno ng logo yung brochure? If that’s a typo, what a big typo! It’s not like the SM Gift Card was that old. It was purchased just last December 2016. The manufacturing date on the gift card was August 2016. Also, the cashier said that they never accepted SM Gift Cards at SM Cinema. So why was the SM Cinema logo even in the SM Gift Card brochure in the first place? It’s so misleading.

Anyway, just sharing this so that other people can know about it. How disappointing that you can’t even trust the brochure and you have to double check pa if you can use the gift card at a certain establishment you want to use it in, or be turned down even when you are right.