Date Released: December 21st, 2018
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Schneider, Jason Drucker, Dylan O' Brien (voicing Bumblebee), Peter Cullen (voicing Optimus Prime), Angela Bassett (voicing Shatter), Justin Theroux (voicing Dropkick), David Sobolov (voicing Blitzwing)

    The Bumblebee movie has been the subject of the most speculation out of any Transformers movie since the first live action movie in 2007, mainly because of three factors. The first is that the previous movie-- The Last Knight-- while not outright bombing, didn't do all that well, and parts of Bumblebee were re-shot, presumably to make it more of a "reboot" than the prequel spin-off movie it was originally intended to be. (The producers wouldn't come and say it was outright a reboot, but... it was a reboot.) Secondly, Bumblebee had a significantly smaller budget than any previous Transformers live action film (when inflation is taken into consideration), and it was a spinoff movie, so obviously it was going to be on a smaller scale. And third-- and this was arguably the biggest thing-- Michael Bay wasn't directing it. Instead, Travis Knight-- who is known for directing animated feature films-- stepped into the role. So, how much did all of this matter?
    It turns out it all mattered a LOT. Bumblebee is VERY different from any of the previous Transformers films, in both good and bad ways. Bumblebee takes place in the '80s, and is a (very) rough re-telling in some aspects of the 2007 live action movie, with Bumblebee being both humanity's and the audience's window into the world of Transformers. More or less-- and I'm speaking in VERY general, wide terms here-- Charlie Watson (played by Hailee Steinfeld) takes the place of Shia LaBeouf/Sam Witwicky, Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) plays the love interest (though in a much tamer manner than in the Bay films), and Agent Burns (John Cena) plays the main human foil/Sector 7 agent who can be a little goofy now and then. In a very basic summarization/blurb of the plot, Charlie Watson feels rather estranged from the rest of her family after her Dad's somewhat recent death (her mother has since remarried), and is quite a depressed person until she stumbles upon Bumblebee, who was almost killed shortly after arriving on Earth and took the form of a run-down VW Bug before shutting down into a sort of "stasis lock" himself. She fixes him, and he becomes a sort of friend/coping mechanism for her as his mystery is slowly unraveled (his memory was badly damaged, and he doesn't get it back until the final act of the movie, so he acts like a child sometimes). Meanwhile, the Decepticons have been hunting down Autobot stragglers, and the Decepticon team of Shatter and Dropkick track down Bumblebee to Earth. Upon finding the reason Bumblebee's on Earth, they try to get a signal to the other Decepticons using Sector 7's network of satellites (Sector 7 are very much the dupes in this movie-- unlike the first movie, they don't have Megatron at the Hoover Dam-- this is their first contact with an alien species).
    The characterization of Charlie Watson is one of the high points of the film. She is a more fully realized character than any other in the various Transformers movies-- human OR robot. Hailee Steinfeld is a very good actress, and very convincingly shows the issues she's going through with the loss of her dad and her mom's "replacement" for him. The estrangement from her family is well-shown as well as her disappointment with life in general and what she's going to do after the next year once she's out of the house (she turns 18 during the course of the movie). She and her dad used to work on a car together in the hopes of fixing it one day, and that's a nice way to get a clunker Bumblebee into the picture. Bumblebee is also well-characterized-- he starts out the movie with his voice, and we see how he leaves his planet without really knowing how his friends are going to turn out, and then he lands on Earth and is promptly shot at by Sector 7 agents and beaten into an inch of his life by Blitzwing, who also removes his vocal processor. As I mentioned earlier, the damage scrambles his circuits, and he acts like he has mild PTSD for much of the movie, at least until the end when he gets his memories back. Bumblebee and Charlie Watson turn out to need each other, which is something that is very rare in Transformers fiction-- usually the humans are just sort of tagging along for no real reason other than having humans in the show/movie, and the Transformers act as sort of babysitters, but that's not the case here. Also along for the ride eventually is Memo, a rather nerdy guy who seems to have had some sort of long-term but unspoken crush on Charlie, and has never had the courage to so much as speak to her until this movie. He's quite funny at times, and the way the romance isn't forced but very slowly evolves-- to the point where they're still not at boyfriend/girlfriend status at the end, only "getting there"-- is a nice change from the usual pace. Shatter and Dropkick don't get deep characterization, but they definitely get enough screen time and lines to get some characterization, with Shatter being more the mastermind of the two and Dropkick being a grumbling sidekick who likes killing. It's not a lot, but it's more than most Decepticons not named Megatron, Starscream, or Lockdown got in previous movies.

    Most of the other characters are fairly minor and only have bit parts, so pretty much as a necessity they tend to be one-note-- the high school "cool kids" in particular seem ripped from any high school movie, and are a bit TOO overly obnoxious at points. The same goes with her "clueless" family (up until near the end). Sector 7 as a whole seems to be a fairly goofy and naive organization that is completely played by the Decepticons every step of the way, with Agent Burns being the only one who even gives off a hint of competence. Again, part of this is necessitated by the story-- you've got a smaller story with a smaller scope and a shorter run time (less than 2 hours)-- so you can't really focus on too many people or you end up with nobody being developed much. However, sometimes the dialogue and humor is a bit stilted and unbelievable, with some of the side characters seeming like they belong in a made-for-TV Disney movie. This is probably my biggest issue with the movie as a whole-- the incredibly bad gifts Charlie gets for her 18th birthday are a bit cliche and just a low point of the movie, as is the usual "peer pressure" lines from her school peers and some of the things Bumblebee does with his memory loss are overly infantile. That said, on the plus side there is absolutely no rude humor-- despite this being a PG-13 movie, it's PG-13 more in the vein of Star Wars movies than previous Transformers live action films. There's a couple of curse words thrown the audience's way, but no sexual jokes or innuendo or anything like that, which I very much liked-- the Transformers movies needed to get more kid-friendly.
    The action in the movie is solid, and the first 5 minutes are pretty much any Transformers fan's dream, with it taking place entirely on Cybertron. This is where the movie goes most decidedly into "reboot" territory, with most of the TFs besides Bumblebee being very clearly their G1 designs with a few extra lines and bits added so they could move/articulate more believably. You don't need to be told who's Ironhide or who's Shockwave-- you know, they look pretty much like their original designs. Cybertron also looks like a much more highly-detailed version of the G1 cartoon Cybertron, as opposed to the layers of hexagons that it appears as in the previous movies. There's a TON of cameos in this very short segment, but unfortunately for those wanting high-octane action it never gets better than these 5 minutes. There are certainly good action sequences on Earth-- Blitzwing vs. Bumblebee is great and takes second place in my opinion, but you never feel like Sector 7 is a threat even when they're all firing on 'Bee, and the climax-- though well-choreographed-- takes place between four characters total (three of them robots, and then Charlie), and it never hits the high notes of the beginning. Again, I understand you can only go so far with this more limited budget, but compared to the previous live action movies there's not nearly as much crazy action and explosions as I'd like. Additionally, you can tell a bit that the Cybertron scenes were added in after most of the rest of the movie had been filmed-- the Cybertron-only Transformers don't quite have the detail that I'd have expected from these movies by now, with the CGI being more of a "AAA video game cinematic" quality and not quite of a "ILM top-quality, completely realistic" quality. The sound effects, though, are as solid as ever (with the classic G1 transformation sound added in more often), and the musical score is pretty satisfying. Said score doesn't quite reach the heights of the previous movies, but then again the action doesn't either, so I guess that fits.

    All in all, if you didn't like the previous Transformers live action movies, I would give Bumblebee a shot, since it's so different in terms of pacing, characterization, action, writing, etc. The high points are the improved choreography, characterization (of the main characters), writing, and how everything comes together so nicely at the end without the ending feeling rushed. The low points, though, are that some of the humor is just bad or lame (albeit thankfully not in a sexual way anymore), the action is good but not blow-your-mind like the Bay movies, and the CGI isn't QUITE up to the standard of the previous TF movies, likely due to the more limited budget. If you HAVE enjoyed all/most of the previous Transformers live action movies like I have, this is also a recommendation; just set your expectations accordingly when it comes to the action. I walked away a little disappointed the first time because of the relative lack of explosions and action, but realized my expectations had perhaps been unrealistic and on a second viewing came to appreciate the improved characterization, better pacing, and more coherent choreography, and that made up for the (relative) dearth of action. If this is more the future of Transformers movies and less of the Bay direction, I can dig it, and you probably will too-- it just will take a little bit to get "used" to the feeling of the new direction.

Plot: 19/20
Characterization: 10/10
Dialogue: 14/15
Action: 17/20
Humor: 13/15
CGI: 9/10
Musical Score: 9/10

Overall Rating: 91/100 Excellent

(Pictures from Imdb.com)

Back to Storage Closet