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"This is not going to go the way you think." is an understatement. I rarely ever write reviews, because my opinion doesn't matter. However, I feel the need to address the vitriol against this movie. For the last two years I've listened to countless theories; Snoke is definitely this person, Rey's parents have got to be such and such. It's been relentless. Some of the theories were decent and plausible. The majority of them were idiotic. I admit that even I got caught up in a couple of them, but I wasn't committed to any particular theory. When finally watching the film, I feel my experience was partly ruined because when certain things happened I kept thinking "Oh no, that's really going to piss people off.". Then I snapped out of it and realized that I didn't care what people think. I loved every second of this film and now that I've had time to process it, I'm glad they went in the direction they did for the majority of the big "mysteries". If you've been discussing, deconstructing and committing to certain ideas of how the movie is going to play out, you've just set yourself up for major disappointments.

This movie definitely didn't play out how I expected in almost every scene, which I was pleased to see that a Star Wars movie could still surprise me.

So maybe take some time, think about this and give it another watch. See if your opinion changes.

I rarely write reviews, but I'm actually surprised about how harshly this is getting bashed. Well, I'm not *that* surprised. All the Transformer films get eviscerated by critics. So I don't put much stock in reviews. All I'll say is; it's more of the same. If you like the previous 4 films, you'll like this one. I enjoy them all for what they are; cheesy popcorn movies. I personally think this film improves on Age of Extinction. Both Mark Wahlberg and Laura Haddock's characters had equally important roles. Unlike the first three films where Sam was always "The Chosen One" and his girlfriend's job was to just run in slow motion yelling "SAAAAAM!". The main group of Decepticons were actually given personalities and unique identities. Though completely under- utilized. They make a big deal of giving them Suicide Squad-like introductions and their screen time amounts to maybe 45 seconds each. I was actually surprised how much screen time Anthony Hopkins had. I figured he'd slum it for two or three scenes, of exposition, grab his paycheck then disappear. But he's actually a prominent character and he seemed to have a lot of fun in the role.

I really don't have much else to say. As stated above, it's the fifth film, you've already made up your mind whether you want to see it or not. If the negative reviews have put you on the fence or dissuaded you, think about whether or not you enjoyed the last four films. If yes, then ignore the critics and enjoy yourself.