When a new threat capable of destroying the entire planet emerges, Optimus Prime and the Autobots must team up with a powerful faction known as the Maximals. With the fate of humanity hanging in th...
As lopsided and embarrassing as the last Transformers movies were, minus the first one, I can’t deny that those films were responsible for bringing Transformers back into the mainstream to some capacity. The reason I mention this is because it’s not hard to tell people held Bumblebee in high regards and hoped for the next ones after this to improve.
If the brief, hurried, and undernourished nature of “Rise Of The Beasts” is anything to take into consideration, it also does the impossible: it kinda makes me miss Michael Bay.
That being said, the few things this does have in its favor are commendable: acting across the board is totally fine, there are some smaller-scale VFX moments that work well enough, and the 90s setting is fairly well-realized along with the rest of the so-so production design and perfectly adequate cinematography and editing: not to mention, the 90’s hip hop soundtrack is legitimately a banger and makes for the best part of the film by default, with the action sequences being a viable exception.
Its tone embraces the more silly, campy nature of the entire ordeal without turning it into a parodical nightmare, the human characters once again are vastly harmless, mustering some relatability, chemistry and vulnerability out of what they’re given, the actual Transformers actually have distinct personalities to differentiate them and Steven Caple Jr’s direction is a welcome change of pace: bringing a more singular narrative focus and visual coherence to proceedings that was woefully lacking in the past.
I can see what this story tried to do: essentially take the entirety of The Last Knight plotline and retool it to make it easy on the eyes and ears and while the script has plenty of issues and annoyances, it’s barely the better one of the two. It might as well be a Saturday morning cartoon and while that isn’t meant to be a criticism, it’s the same template as before: Humans discover giant robots living among us, bad giant robots want magic thing to destroy world, Humans and good giant robots team up, and they all go to some new locale to fight. It’s a formula that works so why bother breaking it; I get it. Not to mention there is a semi-decent centering around showing compassion and empathy for the unknown, learning how to put selfish fronts and interests aside when working towards a common goal and learning how to trust and lean on one another for support.
There’s no taking away how superficial those messages and morals are but they are still effective.
Unfortunately, what the rest of this plot gives us is nothing short of disappointing: everything here feels EMPTY and negligent. Unlike Bumblebee, the plot does not do a good job balancing its spectacle with a small-scale story, not because it’s uneven but because both the stakes and world-building aren’t understood or fully realized, nor does it pack the disarming wit that bolstered the previous film; if you were to tell me the script here was A.I generated, I’d have a hard time not believing you and even if you put aside the few logic gasps and noggin scratchers in regards to what this story gives you, there is NOTHING to distract you from how plain it all comes across as. It is so strange watching a Transformers movie with the barest of visual and narrative connective tissue and having it play out like a recent MCU flick.
Dialogue is cheesy but not in the best of ways, the movie's overall muted aesthetic is so unrelentingly drab and unlike Bumblebee, the emotional core between Noah and Mirage isn’t as judiciously built up or organic as Bumblebee and Charlie’s. In fact, all of the characterization in this film is incredibly uneven across the board from characters repeating certain beats from previous movies, reducing the Maximals to secondary characters in their own damn film or the weird sidelining of most of the female leads.
Unfortunately, this is still very much a sign that these guys have no damn idea as to whether they want this to be a reboot or prequel to the Michael Bay movies…..and that’s only guaranteed to get more confusing thanks to THAT final scene. At best, it had me laughing in bewilderment; at worst, it’s a desperate attempt at expansion into another cinematic universe that needs A LOT more time to craft.
I definitely don’t hate the movie but there’s nothing a whole lot about it to recommend either and contrast to whatever the Michael Bay movies were, that’s probably the worst sin a Transformers movie can be: uneventful and less than meets the eye.
