Well, it only took eleven years, six movies, a new director
and a complete aesthetics change, but the impossible has finally happened: we
got a Transformers movie that’s
actually good. Of course, it’s pretty easy to oversell Bumblebee only because the rest of the Transformers movies have been is bad. Hell, I did that in my review
of Wonder
Woman by constantly comparing it to the rest of the DC Extended
Universe and got cut
down to size for it. It’s also easy to credit the rapturous praise to
nostalgia, what with it being set in the 80’s and the redesigns being closer to
the original cartoon. And while Bumblebee,
here a prequel/soft reboot of the Michael Bay Transformers saga, is a solid movie on its own, its not exactly a
game changer. And quite frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Our story follows Bumblebee, who was sent by Optimus Prime
to set up refuge for the Autobots. When he arrives on Earth circa 1987, he’s
treated with hostility by the US military and has a close call with a
Decepticon. Right before he shuts down, he takes the form of a Volkswagen
Beetle and is later discovered by a young gearhead named Charlie (Hailee
Steinfeld) in a junkyard. When Bumblebee reactivates, his voice module is
damaged and his memory is wiped, including his mission, but it all comes back
when two Decepticon soldiers (Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux) convince a CIA
agent (John Cena) that he’s a wanted criminal and recruit him and the military
to hunt him down.
One of the biggest reasons Transformers movies didn’t work
until now is because Michael Bay held the Transformers themselves in contempt,
which is why the characters themselves are one-dimensional ciphers (if they’re
lucky to be given personalities at all) to be shuffled around between
explosions and fetishistic glamor shots of expensive military hardware. Bumblebee is what happens when this
property is put into the hands of someone who has genuine affection for it and
is concerned with telling a good story. In this case, the production is helmed
by Travis Knight, an animation veteran primarily known for Kubo and the Two Strings. That animation background is especially
evident in the opening sequence where we see Bee’s escape from Cybertron, which
feels half like a cutscene from the world’s coolest Transformers video game, and half like the fully realized version of
the 80’s cartoon that old-school fans never really got.
That opening segment is probably the pinnacle of high-octane
action. The story itself is relatively small with a small cast of characters, knowing
when to bring out the big guns and when to give the audience a chance to breathe.
While Michael Bay’s is more or less absent, Steven Spielberg’s producing
touches can be felt throughout. While the script is pretty solid and tight, the
story itself owes a lot to the “kid befriends a magical creature” sub-genre
that was really popular in the 80’s, and follows many of the same beats: kid
meets a magical creature, kid tries to hide said creature from her parents, kid
finds out the magical creature has cool powers that result in adventures and
hijinks, magical creature learns the hard way that humans can be cruel, the
government finds out about the creature and tries to detain/destroy it, kid stages
a rescue mission, they make an escape with the aid of the creature’s powers, kid
and creature go their separate ways with a tearful goodbye, roll credits.
People will almost inevitably compare this to E.T., but I think the more appropriate comparison is The Iron Giant, both in that the magical
creature is actually a giant robot with built-in weapons but a childlike,
nonviolent personality, and while both try to push a “violence is bad” message,
Bumblebee can’t help but undercut
that simply by nature of being cut from the same cloth as the Bayformers.
Although the story is pretty basic, it nakedly plays off the
audience’s nostalgia, and it’s easy to praise it for the things it doesn’t do, Bumblebee is still a solid family action
film on its own. We’ve seen a lot of weird things happen this year, and while a
decent Transformers movie wasn’t something I was expecting, it’s still a
pleasant surprise and a nice way to cap off the year.
7/10
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