Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

S P O I L E R S

Well, it's finally here! it's been 5 years since the Bumblebee movie and the Transformers are once again back on the big screen in Rise of the Beasts. It seems like Transformers the brand has been on a bit of a Beast Wars nostalgia trip recently with the recent "Kingdom" toy line proceeding the current "Legacy" line. I don't know all of the details but it seems like this film had at least a 3 year production cycle. I remember seeing articles around 2020 about the film being under production in South America and some of the production money of the film went to improving the local infrastructure (roads, etc) and the locals were, allegedly, incredibly grateful that the production came to their country and was a huge boom for their economy as opposed to a huge nuisance. I think a lot of time in the oven was definitely to this film's benefit, although who knows what aspects of it were left on the cutting room floor. 

So what did I think of it? Overall I had a great time. It's probably the best live action Transformers movie featuring the ensemble cast. I actually have never re-watched Bumblebee since it was in theaters so it's hard for me to recall if I like that film better. It may not be very original or ground breaking, but if we break down all of the elements that DON'T work in Michael Bay's live action Transformers movies: Irritating human characters who are either poorly written, annoying, racist, sexist etc. Incomprehensible cinematography, nonsensical plot construction and excessive post-9/11 "Who! go America! go Military!" patriotism. This film addresses all of those things and is not bogged down by ANY of the existing underlying problems of the previous films. I almost feel like they're doing a very similar thing to what happened with the X-men film series. Everyone hated The Last Stand, so they rebooted the series in an alternate timeline with mostly the same cast and....made them good all of a sudden? including one or two standalone films featuring the series' most profitable character. Sound familiar? I got everything I wanted out of this movie which was: Likable human characters, fluent and flowing action scenes where all of the choreography happens clearly visible on screen without a thousand quick edits or shakey camera. 

In terms of production quality, the visuals were great, this continuity's robot designs are a lot easier on the eyes, even if their faithfulness to the original cartoons/comics creates a bit of an uncanny effect with their human like faces. But the cinematography was great and there were lots of REALLY cool shots where all of the action flows seamlessly without any cuts. Lots of these are in the trailer if you want to know what I mean. I enjoyed a lot of score and licensed music, the hip-hop not only helps solidify the film in it's setting, early 90s New York, but I was also really down with the film's decision to continue to play licensed hip-hop tracks even during action set pieces. It was a pretty unique vibe and I was definitely enjoying it. After our opening flashback where we see the Maximal's homeworld eaten by Unicron, we meet our main character, Noah Diaz. I cannot even begin to tell you how much of a breath of fresh air this character was thematically and politically compared to Shia Labeouf's character from the original films. Noah is poor. He's down on his luck trying to make a living in NYC, living with his brother and mother. His brother being denied healthcare access due to their poverty and he's discriminated against for job opportunities. He's even a veteran, a HUGE stark contrast thematically to Bay's in-your-face patriotism. The army wasn't awesome to this guy, they fucked this guy. There is a great scene with him and his brother on the train where he says "Nobody is looking out for us, we have to make it on our own." Compare that to Shia Labeouf's character. Sam is white, comes from an unbroken family, is an only child and is clearly V E R Y well off. His parents own a house in California that is worth, by my estimation AT LEAST $500K in 2007 money. They're basically rich. Sam is also incompetent, winey and entitled and the only reason he gets involved with the Autobots is he just HAPPENED to be related to the man who discovered Megatron. Whereas in this film, Noah was a soldier and a comm expert, so there is a precedent for him being brave and having an affinity for technology. He also discovers Mirage by resorting to crime out of desperation to help his family, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. it wasn't his "magical destiny" to be involved with the Autobots and when the Autobots try to get rid of him, he shows enough sass to Optimus Prime to where they give in and allow him to stay part of the team. 

I really enjoyed this portrayal of Prime as well. It's almost like they were going for a younger, more brash version of him who has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He's not full of the wisdom he would have in the years to come. I LOVE that they directly compare Noah's blight to Prime's. It gives them something in common to understand each other. I loved the line when Elena says "He just looks like a big brother looking out for his family". Very unique and interesting take on Prime. He's always been portrayed in these films as all powerful, infinitely wise and cannot make any mistakes. With this version of Prime that isn't the case and still has some lessons to learn. He also clearly HATES Scourge. PASSIONATELY. Which is a little uncharacteristic of him, he never spat this much vitriol to Megatron regardless of how many allies he had lost. 

Having only three Terrorcons was a little underwhelming but they were incredibly tough so it checks out. Scourge's design was really badass, although some of his dialogue didn't land for me? he had some very corny lines? I wasn't sure who did his vocal performance either but apparently it's Peter Dinklage and normally I really enjoy all of his performances but I'm not sure if this was a good choice. It was like, "what if we had Ultron from Marvel again, but he instead of him being kind of silly and witty, we just made him corny and awkward". Battletrap might have been my favorite design of all of the new characters. Dude has a minigun and a wrecking ball and just shrugs off being shot at like it's nothing. I feel like a people who went into this movie looking forward to the Maximals having a lot of development will be disappointed as they're only fully united in the second half of the film. Rinox and Cheetor barely do anything except fight in the climax. But Primal's characterization was really well done. He's sort of a reality check for Prime and reminds him of what calm, resolute leader should be like. Weirdly because Primal's whole leadership model is inspired by the "legends" of Optimus Prime. That, plus the line that says "we are your past and future" made me question if there was some sort of alternate timeline/time travel nonsense at play that was dropped from the plot. Primal is voiced by Ron Pearlman which was an awesome choice and he sounds great. It actually made me genuinely upset when he was forced to kill Airrazor. I was not okay. The entire climax was fun although I did kind of chuckle when I realized they were inevitably going to have to go with the "sky portal climax" that gets made fun of as a cliche in blockbusters these days. Man of Steel had it. Fan4stic had it. Even previous TF movies had it, (DOTM I believe) but at least it's well established in this film that it is the villains plot right from the start. Implementing Unicron is always a tough call. It's hard to get him right and I know some fans aren't happy with his inclusion in the film. It is never properly explained why exactly Unicron needs the space bridge key thing to keep destroying planets. Why was he "trapped" in the galaxy that contained the Maximal home planet at the beginning? can't he just float his planet sized ass through space until he one day arrives at another planet? he's immortal and infinite and so what if it takes a few 1,000 years to reach the next planet, he only exists to consume them and use their energy to get to the next one and repeat the process. Speaking of one of the very few things in the film that didn't make sense. how in THE HELL was Noah able to communicate with his brother Chris over the radio when one is in Peru and the other is in New York??? in 1994. Pretty sure that's impossible unless they were using Mirage's robot technology to make it possible. Other than those two things, not a whole lot of nonsensical, confusing things in this movie thankfully. Bumblebee's "Re-entry" was fantastic. Definitely done for fan service and I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. Prime's finishing of Scourge was so freaking metal. I was really satisfied with that even though I feel like it would have been a little bit more appropriate for Primal to have done it since Scourge had taken more from him. But Primal still got to bash Battletrap's head in with his own wrecking ball which was very satisfying. 

Overall I'm pretty happy with the film. Not ground breaking but I got what I wanted out of it even though my experience with the theater itself was hot garbage. I will be discussing that more with Caleb on his stream later today. I'm highly looking forward to the inevitable Transformers GI Joe crossover that will apparently be the next live action movie. Even though I wouldn't be the least bit upset if this was the final film and they just didn't make any more of these. I think the chances of that happening are pretty low and at least a TF Joe live action crossover is pretty ripe, uncharted territory. After the film I completed the Transformers film going experience and pretended it was 2007 again. I went to the Target that was in the shopping center across from the theater in search of buying one of the new toys. Because of course that's what you would do after seeing this. I wanted to pick up Scourge or Battletrap but those are currently only available in Studio Series and the Target didn't have them. They did however have the Legacy Blitzwing which I had been in search of for a few months now, so he came home with me. Anyone who's been keeping up with my TF video game retrospective series will be happy to know this is the day I will be filming the live action segments for the War For Cybertron video which will hopefully be fully edited and posted here in about 2 weeks. 

Thank you guys so much for reading and I will see you next time!