Transformers: The Last Knight | 2017

Now we're off to Namibia, West Africa where a fairly authentic Himba village was built on the shore south of Walvis Bay toward Sandwich Harbour, just for the discovery of a giant alien "horn" – one of six appearing around the globe. More portents of the mysterious event to come.

Back in the USA, when the military along with Decepticons descend on Yeager's junkyard, there's a hurried exodus leading to a battle in an apparently empty small town.

This is the Poletown East neighborhood of Detroit, named for the Polish immigrants who worked at the old Packard plant we saw earlier which is only a short distance to the east.

Although dilapidated, this is a historic area centred on the abandoned Baroque St Stanislaus Catholic Church, on the southeast corner of Medbury and Dubois Streets, which is where Cade and his crew seek shelter.

St Stanislaus has a beautiful, if faded, interior but that’s not what’s seen onscreen. Once inside, the church has become Detroit's even more photogenic Gothic Revival Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church, 44 West Philadelphia Street at Woodward Avenue.

This magnificent building dating from 1911 has been practically derelict since 2005 as various plans to renovate it have so far come to nothing. Perhaps the movie's location fee will see it finally restored.

From Poletown, Yeager and chums are suddenly rushing into Detroit's landmark Fisher Building, 3011 West Grand Boulevard, currently owned by Michigan State University. It's here that Cogman turns up to collect Yeager. It's not that easy as Yeager falls from the hi-rise (no, the Fisher Building doesn't really have cool exterior lifts) but in the confusion of Downtown Detroit's high-rises, he manages to cling to a drone.

Transformers have been here before – the Fisher's beautiful lobby was seen in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

When Cogman calls for further instructions, Sir Edmund answers the call from his Conservatory, which you may recognise as the Great Conservatory at Syon Park House, Brentford in West London, which I'll always remember onscreen as 'Heaven' in Stanley Donen's original 1967 Bedazzled. It was also the greenhouse of 'Hallucinogen Hall', the estate of Sir August de Wynter (Sean Connery) in the 1998 big screen version of TV's The Avengers, and even as the conservatory of 'Buckingham Palace' when John Goodman ascended the British throne in King Ralph.

Syon Park House itself is an even more frequent location in countless films.

Once we get to the UK, the geography gets crazier. Vivian is at home chatting with her family when Hot Rod turns up to whisk her away.

Vivian's 'Oxford' home is Sir John Soane's Museum, 13, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2, the former home of architect Sir John Soane. As you can see later when Vivian goes exploring through her father's collection, the museum is filled with drawings and architectural models of Soane's own projects as well as the paintings, sculptures, drawings, and antiquities he acquired over the years. Incidentally, the apartment of John Steed in The Avengers (1998) was a studio set based on this house.

But once Vivian has been picked up by Hot Rod, they roar off through the streets of Oxford and are soon arriving at 'Castle Colgan'. Remember I said the castle might be a transformer?

Although the castle is still Bamburgh when Cade's copter touches down on the beach beside it, when Hot Rod rolls up to the entrance, it's morphed into Alnwick Castle, also Northumberland – famous as the site of Madame Hooch’s flying lesson at ‘Hogwarts’ in the first Harry Potter movie.

Alnwick is also featured in Shekhar Kapur’s historical epic Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchett, 1971 drama Mary, Queen Of Scots, glimpsed briefly in Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, with Kevin Costner, was the backdrop for Disney 1979 fantasy The Spaceman and King Arthur and crops up again in the 2019 big screen version of Downton Abbey.

As Sir Edmund dumps the historical exposition (this is where we see the controversial shot of Blenheim covered in swastikas), the castle's Round Table Room is the familiar interior of the Priory Church of St Bartholomew The Great, Smithfield, a small church – repository of the bones of St Rahere – tucked away behind Smithfield, London EC1, and frequently seen in films, including Four Weddings and a Funeral; Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves; Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes; Neil Jordan’s The End Of The Affair; Oscar-winner Shakespeare in Love; The Other Boleyn Girl; and Elizabeth, The Golden Age.

Transforming hardly begins to describe the castle’s abilities. When the Knights of the Round Table in flashback swear the oath with 12 Transformers, the table is standing in the middle of the ruins of Rievaulx Abbey in Helmsley, North Yorkshire. The Cistercian monastery, founded in 1132, fell victim to Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. Now managed by English Heritage, Rievaulx is open regularly (though check the dates in advance) and is west of the village of Helmsley on the A170 about 25 miles north of York.

We now learn that not only is Professor Vivian is a descendant of Merlin, but Cade is the chosen 'Last Knight'. Who'd have thought?

As the authorities roll up, Cade, Vivian and Cogman roar off through the spectacular gates of the castle, which has, yes, transformed once more.

Did you recognise the carved stone eagles as the entrance to 'Wayne Manor' in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman? It's Knebworth House, Knebworth near Stevenage in Hertfordshire. The elaborate Victorian extravaganza is a screen natural, also seen in 1956 drama Anastasia, Horror Hospital, biopic Wilde and The King’s Speech among others.

In this strangely shrunken version of the UK, they're crossing London's Westminster Bridge in no time at all and arriving at Vivian's 'Oxford' house which is, as we've seen, really is in London.

Confused? Well there's more...

Page 1   |   Page 2   |   Page 3

---