Transformers: Rise of the Beasts hits theaters this weekend. Despite making multiple billions of dollars at the worldwide box office, the Transformers movies have had a rough time with audiences. Criticized by many for their ballooning run times, over reliance on stereotypes, and far too many humans, audiences slowly but surely turned on Hasbro’s marquee franchise right as they started to listen to criticisms and get better.
2018’s Bumblebee was a fantastic, character-driven story that felt like a love letter to the original cartoon, an appropriate tribute to some of the best family films of the 1980s, and a genuinely compelling narrative in its own right. And almost nobody went to see it because they got burned out by the Bay movies. Will the same fate befall the latest installment, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts? I sure hope not.
The Plot
Rise of the Beasts may not quite live up to the lofty standards set by Bumblebee, but it’s undoubtedly the best of the ensemble Transformers films; even if that isn’t exactly a high bar. Set in 1994, seven years after Bumblebee, our story finds the Autobots living on Earth stranded until part of a mysterious artifact capable of sending them home gets activated in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, our heroes aren’t the only ones after it.
Scourge, villainous assassin and servant of the planet-eater Unicron, wants to use the artifact to bring his master to Earth. With the aid of the Maximals, the artifact’s secret guardians, and two ordinary humans caught in the crossfire, the Autobots must travel the globe to find the rest of the artifact, stop Scourge, and prevent Unicron from destroying Earth and Cybertron.
The Critique
At first glance, this may sound like a typical plot from the Bay films. There’s a Cybertronian thing on Earth, the bad guys want to use it for bad stuff, the good guys have to get it first, insert explosions where appropriate. The key difference, apart from the greater visual clarity in Steven Caple Jr.’s directing style compared to Bay, is that Rise of the Beasts trims a vast majority of the fat present in previous installments.
There’s no prolonged unfunny comedy routines, no pointless romantic storylines, no extraneous military subplots, all of the stuff that made the Bay films, especially the later ones, bloated messes is excised entirely. The film wastes no time going from one major set piece to the next while remaining focused on a smaller, core group of characters with distinct designs and personalities. It’s a thoroughly entertaining watch that moves at a steady clip that I might even describe as breezy if its action wasn’t so intense.
Seriously, every action scene in this film is a treat to watch, showcasing each robot’s distinct abilities, weapons, and personalities to great effect. The third act in particular is an absolute show-stopper. A tour-de-force of big sweeping action where every character gets at least one major memorable moment to shine; buoyed by the best of the film’s frequent 90s hip-hop needle drops. A dream come true for hardcore Transformers fans.
If anything, the main issue with Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the exact opposite of the previous films. It’s too short. Despite being just over 2 hours long and still beating out Bumblebee‘s 114-minute runtime, I kept finding myself asking for more. The film is so concerned with getting from one big moment to the next that it ends up not having a lot of time to breathe. Characters like Liza Koshy’s Arcee, or about half of the Maximals end up not getting as much screen time or development as I would’ve liked.
Also Read: Internet Convinced Transformers Franchise Finally Back After Glorious ‘Rise of the Beasts’ Reviews
Additionally, the understandable cutting down of the humans might have gone slightly too far in the other direction. Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback are good as Noah and Elana respectively (Noah in particular gets a compelling three-way parallel arc between him, Ron Perlman’s lovably gruff Optimus Primal, and Peter Cullen putting in some of his best Optimus Prime work ever), but their roles almost end up feeling superfluous. I feel like it would’ve been better to have a more even split like Bumblebee or just not have named humans at all.
Finally, and this is admittedly somewhat of a nitpick, the new Transformers films, as in Bumblebee and this, really need to stop being afraid of using the classic Decepticons. While Peter Dinklage brings a genuine menace to Scourge and the brief scenes of Unicron were a thrill to watch, most of the on-the-ground threats end up being Scourge’s nameless army of Terrorcons and it’s just not as interesting as having our fleshed-out ensemble of heroes go up against an equally fleshed-out ensemble of villains.
In Conclusion
Despite these issues, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has just about everything you could want out of a summer blockbuster. The action is great, it’s funny, the cast does a terrific job, it doesn’t run too long, and its large ensemble of colorful characters is small enough to keep track of, but large and varied enough that everyone’s bound to have a new and different favorite by the time the credits roll. I was hoping for more, and the ending certainly hints at that, but when your movie’s biggest issue is “This was great. Why can’t I have more of it?” that’s probably a good sign.
9/10
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