acid reflects

I can’t say this has loads of fan service because as a casual viewer, I wouldn’t know which service they were making if they showed it. Maybe it does, a lot of viewers I was watching with cheered loudly at some points in the screening.

I’d be honest. I’ve been trying to write this review a few times and almost finished a draft, but I inexplicably lost it even though I had the site autosave turned on. I should’ve been done by now. The frustration isn’t the thought of losing what was there, it’s the added work of reconstructing what could have been a good start. Sounds like an analogy that shadows what I am about to say about the most recent live-action outing from toymaker Hasbro.

When you’ve been writing so many reviews of the same franchise through the years – the first Transformers from Michael Bay came out in 2007 – the struggle isn’t so much as the actual review, it’s the construction of something relevant to the time. And in this case, relevance comes in the form of a line of Transformers that are just receiving their big screen debuts.

Set in 1994 Earth, Rise of the Beasts marks the seventh film among the live-action adaptations of the toy-cartoons and is a sequel to the 2018 story reboot Bumblebee which was set in 1987. The reboot wipes the slate away from the first Michael Bay continuity and starts anew with the possibility of merging other Hasbro IPs into an expansive cinematic universe. When they said, “more than meets the eye,” they meant a lot more.

In the film, the beast-form Maximals hide an important transwarp key in Earth after fleeing their homeworld that just got devoured by the planet-eating Unicron. The key, which opens portals in space-time, is accidentally triggered by museum researcher Elena (Dominique Fishback) among several artifacts that arrived in their keep. Alerted by the key’s signal, Optimus Prime (still voiced by Peter Cullen) messages Autobots to assemble and retrieve the key. At the same time, struggling ex-military technician Noah (Anthony Ramos) discovers that the car he just jacked is the Autobot Mirage (Pete Davidson) which then rendezvous to meet the rest of the team at the museum. Unbeknownst to them, Terrorcons and scorpion-like Predacons – servants of Unicron – led by Scourge (Peter Dinklage) have landed on Earth also in pursuit of the key. Their first encounter with everyone does not end well, but the good guys figure out that they must work together to retrieve the key and defeat Unicron. Maximal Airazor (Michelle Yeoh) tells the Autobots that they need to meet the rest of her tribe, and that meant flying off to stunning Peru. The rest of the story unfolds there, where Autobots meet the Maximals to thwart Unicron, spoilers avoided. Especially the ending.

While I found the story tired and derivative,  the movie keeps its brand in focus – as an action-adventure about humans and robots bound by a common struggle to defend family. That’s a good enough message from essentially a toy show.

The story basics is a solid relationship between human and robot, and in this instance is between Noah and Mirage. Where the film Bumblebee explored a more grounded, emotional bond between the robot and Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld,) in Rise of the Beasts it is a brotherly connection with Noah and Mirage profuse with comical banter, plus a side story of brotherly love between Noah and his sickly younger brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez.)

What is sickly is a lot of extraneous stuff on the human side of the story that’s probably easter eggs that had to be laid in preparation for the surprise at the end. Most of the fans probably know what they are. To me, they merely extended the film’s running time. Then again if it’s just shoot ’em up Decepticons, what are the humans for?

Cynically, the portrayal of the robots was a little, er, mechanical. From Prime’s unprovoked barking to Scourge’s mystifying design (what does he really transform into? or does he not, to distinguish him from Megatron/ Galvatron? But his insignia collection tatts look sick.) How does one design a planet-eating mechanical god? Unicron looked like The Eye of Sauron met Galactus in the 2007 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. But even with all of these, I kept wondering why weren’t there more of the Maximals if it was their movie. I mean, how many speaking lines does Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa) have?

Peru as location of the rest of the film looks stunning of course – the colorful festivities look fun and engaging (someday I’ll go there.) But before Peru, the action set pieces look generic and unremarkable. Machu Picchu as an action set piece? Amazing. Meanwhile, the museum action set was done at night, some were in random-looking cargo hangars, and the Maximals’ planet design-wise was forgettable. I’m just saying, the film’s weakest points are its generic story and then the visuals. Don’t get me started on what happens to Noah marvelously during the big battle.

As an Asian, I did find the diversity in the cast very refreshing and welcoming.

My first nephew Jerome, who was a big fan of the Gen1 Transformers cartoon, would’ve enjoyed this callback to the OG.

The surprise at the end did raise my eyebrows. Go, bring it on.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was directed by Steven Caple Jr. from a story by Joby Harold and starring Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Luna Lauren Velez, Dean Scott Vazquez, Tobe Nwigwe, Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, David Sobolov, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Pete Davidson, Colman Domingo, Cristo Fernández, and Tongayi Chirisa.

Images courtesy of Paramount Pictures