From the ashes of the shitpile that has been the Transformers franchise, comes a film with the charm and enjoyment that those films were lacking, and without the endless explosions and incomprehensible action that those films threw at us. Bumblebee ditches Michael Bay in favour of Kubo and the Two Strings' Travis Knight, and boy does it make for a better film.
Set in the late 80s, an 18-year old named Charlie finds a run-down yellow Volkswagen Beetle that she manages to start. Upon taking it home a piece falls off the bottom, and while trying to fix it she discovers that her car just so happens to be a Transformer. Charlie and Bumblebee then have to protect themselves from the likes of experiment-hungry government officials and devious Decepticons.
Hailee Steinfeld plays Charlie and is delightful in the leading role. She is charismatic as hell and beyond easy to connect with. Bumblee is portrayed similarly to ET and the Iron Giant, which makes the relationship with Charlie crucial, and the way their friendship is developed gives them a strong bond that carries the film. John Cena plays a military guy hunting down Bumblebee, and unfortunately isn't as strong. His acting is no different than what we've seen from him before, but while his goofiness fits the tone of his character in Blockers, it makes him hard to take seriously here. Jorge Lendeborg Jr plays a guy that has a crush on Charlie, and much like Steinfeld brings a ton of charm and charisma to his role.
From a technical standpoint this film does right a lot of what the other Transformers films do wrong. The human characters are for the most part all easy to connect with, and Bumblebee himself has more character than anyone in the previous films. Michael Bay shot action as a mess of metal parts clashing together so sloppily that it was impossible to tell what was happening. Knight shoots everything in a much more cohesive way and it makes these fight scenes much more exciting than a bunch of mess and explosions. The story is at times pretty cheesy, but it's also fun, and the dialogue for pretty much everything in the film aside from the government plots is really great. The tone resembles that of The Iron Giant for much of the film and it works incredibly well.
This is an alltogether enjoyable film that most people should easily enjoy.
Rating: 3.4/5
Written by Matt McKenzie
Set in the late 80s, an 18-year old named Charlie finds a run-down yellow Volkswagen Beetle that she manages to start. Upon taking it home a piece falls off the bottom, and while trying to fix it she discovers that her car just so happens to be a Transformer. Charlie and Bumblebee then have to protect themselves from the likes of experiment-hungry government officials and devious Decepticons.
Hailee Steinfeld plays Charlie and is delightful in the leading role. She is charismatic as hell and beyond easy to connect with. Bumblee is portrayed similarly to ET and the Iron Giant, which makes the relationship with Charlie crucial, and the way their friendship is developed gives them a strong bond that carries the film. John Cena plays a military guy hunting down Bumblebee, and unfortunately isn't as strong. His acting is no different than what we've seen from him before, but while his goofiness fits the tone of his character in Blockers, it makes him hard to take seriously here. Jorge Lendeborg Jr plays a guy that has a crush on Charlie, and much like Steinfeld brings a ton of charm and charisma to his role.
From a technical standpoint this film does right a lot of what the other Transformers films do wrong. The human characters are for the most part all easy to connect with, and Bumblebee himself has more character than anyone in the previous films. Michael Bay shot action as a mess of metal parts clashing together so sloppily that it was impossible to tell what was happening. Knight shoots everything in a much more cohesive way and it makes these fight scenes much more exciting than a bunch of mess and explosions. The story is at times pretty cheesy, but it's also fun, and the dialogue for pretty much everything in the film aside from the government plots is really great. The tone resembles that of The Iron Giant for much of the film and it works incredibly well.
This is an alltogether enjoyable film that most people should easily enjoy.
Rating: 3.4/5
Written by Matt McKenzie
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