IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.
Released: 22nd June
Seen: 6th November
Let’s be honest, the Transformers series as a cinematic universe hasn’t exactly had the best track record. Sure, the original animated film is considered something of a cult classic that had people sobbing over the death of a cartoon robot but then we had almost a half dozen atrocities directed by the luckiest man on earth, Michael Bay and that ended up being a big mistake. Sure, Bay’s films made money but none of them were actually good, they were spectacles that eventually lost their luster through bad filmmaking and uninteresting stories. Now fortunately the franchise was wrestled away from Bay and given to people who seemed to care which led to Bumblebee which is still the high point for the live-action series. It was a movie that actually felt fun and fresh in a way that has clearly impacted how these movies are made because it led directly to Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, which might not be as great as Bumblebee, but it’s still fun.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts brings the villain Unicron to the live-action franchise for the first time that actually matters (yes he was a tease at the end of Last Knight, he didn’t even have a voice and if you honestly remember what Unicron was doing in that film then you need to touch some grass right now). Unicron has been doing his thing of destroying worlds and now he wants to try it with Earth. Of course, the Autobots and a new species known as Maximals (basically animal robots) will fight to stop him while being helped by this film’s set of human protagonists, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) who is an ex-military man trying to support his family and Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), a museum worker who is an expert on all things historical. With the robots and humans teaming up to stop Unicron and his army of Terrorbots (terrifying robots, this franchise is amazing at the naming thing) and the world on the line, get ready to see a whole bunch of robots punch each other in all kinds of awesome ways.
When it comes to Transformers movies, let’s be honest and admit that we mostly just want to see cool robots doing cool shit and fighting each other a lot. We can have a plot to explain why it’s happening but that’s kind of like having a plot in a porn film, it’s great to see the ambition but it’s not what anyone is here for. That being said it does help that this plot is not only good at giving Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts a decent set of stakes but it’s explained well enough that you can follow it without thinking too much about it. There are some keys that need to be gotten, certain kinds of robots are bad and other kinds of robots are good, there’s one big robot the size of a planet that needs the keys so it can fuck everything up. It’s simple and effective enough that you can just go with it. It also has a few moments where characters dramatically come up against problems for a moment of emotional pain, but also knows how to get around those quickly because it knows that we’re not here for a great emotional story.
What the audience is here for is the big action set pieces and effects which Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts delivers with ease. Its action scenes feel intense like it’s actually life or death. Major characters feel like they could be destroyed at any moment, there’s some real damage being done here to some of these robots and it makes for some intense moments. The opening fight that sets up how powerful the Terrorbots are is probably one of the more shocking fights to be seen in one of these films because you just don’t expect to see that kind of damage done to one of the Transformers.
It also helps that everything is well filmed, there’s no abundance of shaky cam ruining the shots and you can clearly tell who every character is and what side they’re on just based on a quick glance. There isn’t a point where it just feels like a swamp of gray metal things being slammed together without any thought involved, you look and instantly know that you’re seeing Optimus Prime getting the shit kicked out of him by Scourge (one of the Terrorbots) because they make sure you can tell easily. It allows you to actually have some investment in the fights because you can see where a character you like is and how they’re doing… Hell, you actually have a chance to have a character to like because each of the robots has a distinct feeling and voice and attitude that makes them worth giving a damn about.
Even the humans are actually interesting and fun characters despite them basically being there purely because a giant 20-foot-tall robot can’t really slip into a small hole meant for a human being. Once again Anthony Ramos proves what people said about him when he was in In The Heights, the man is a natural-born leading man who should be given so many projects, so it’s wild that this is the first big on-camera role he’s had since In The Heights. Everyone is sleeping on this man and it feels like a crime. What’s also a crime is how little Dominique Fishback is being used because she’s also just got such natural charisma that she lights up the screen. Together they do the exact job they need to do, namely to be the audience POV during this big silly battle we’re watching and both of them absolutely excel at it. You like them both, you want to see them survive and cheer when they have moments of triumph.
Now, does all this praise mean that Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is the best in the franchise? No, Bumblebee is because that movie understood that this franchise is very silly and leaned into that and Rise of the Beasts seems to be taking things a lot more seriously (or as seriously as one can when you keep hearing Pete Davidson’s voice coming out of a Lamborghini). While Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is certainly enjoyable and funny, it’s not a laugh-a-minute riot with the best action scenes ever. The action scenes are perfectly fine and most of the jokes get a good chuckle, it’s good but it’s not great… which is still a step up from the first five films in the franchise but a step down from the absolute wonder that was Bumblebee (seriously go watch Bumblebee, that film got slept on so badly and should’ve been the biggest hit of this franchise).
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is pretty much the bare minimum that you want out of a Transformers film. It’s fun, has good characters, some exciting action scenes, and a whole lot of time with a bunch of big ass robots kicking the shit out of each other. It’s not aiming for more than the level of fun popcorn film and it absolutely nails that, delivering something that’s just a good time for a couple of hours with some familiar characters from a misspent youth. If all the Transformers movies could be this good at the bare minimum, the franchise would be in a much better place.
Movie Meister Reviews 