Review of Bumblebee (2018) by Chris W — 26 Dec 2018

I will be the one to admit.......don't judge me; I actually liked the first Transformers movie (Michael Bay) THAT'S IT!!

From there on out every sequel made by the man became more and more ridiculous, racist, and sexist in a lot of ways; every now and then Michael always wanted the opportunity to take a camera up a woman's skirt for his own personal gratification I guess. We all know his movies were a s***fest and yet we all went to get a ticket for it cause there was nothing else out there and to be honest we all were thinking for something better cause the way we as movie goers were seeing it...Michael wanted to make 7 more movies in his roster and enough was enough. We wanted something light at the end of this dark time and strangely enough we found it in a new director and a age old hero of 'Bumblebee'.

This time Travis Knight (Kubo and the two strings, Boxtrolls) takes over directing and Stephen Spielberg is still the executive produce and the end result is a fun, campy, and action pack origin story of a beloved auto-bot and a director who FINALLY did his homework by using the Generation one platform to set up probably one of the best looking transformers film and hopefully a starting point for a huge overhaul reboot.

The film goes back to the 80's where for me Nostalgia bomb hit when we see MR. T cereal and of course the 80s power ballads (including Rick Astley...eh!) and before long we are thrust into the battle of cybertron....AGAIN...but wait!!

Before we sigh at the fact that we had at least 5 movies privy to this showing the same arc before, this time it feels VERY different we are introduced to the generation one version of EVERY transformer and.....IT.....LOOOKED......AMAZING!!!

THIS is what all of us wanted to see as fans of the movie but barely got that...we actually see the robots fight and it was watchable; in the first 15 mins, Travis Knight gives us want we wanted for a while that Michael Bay barely gave us in ANY of the 5 films and we get a TALKING BUMBLEBEE OMG...lmao it was surprising to me too consider you would think that throughout the other s***jobs known as Beyformers they would work on his vocal processors to get him to talk again but in this we get at least a valid reason why he lost his voice and while we think it will be canonical to the other films (in a way its not) but the majority of this movie is bumblebee who lost his memory lands on earth and is befriended by Charlie (Haliee Steinfeld) adventure ensures and bumblebee while getting his memory back he's being hunted by not only two decepticons but by Sector 7's John Cena who actually was more of the comic relief of the movie; there were a couple of moments in this film where he actually made me laugh and he was making sense of the matter, "they call themselves decepticons....does that give off any warning!!?".

The movie is your run of the mill popcorn adventure flix and if you set your expectation to the middle you'll be surprised at how fun it is. This movie isn't perfect and I don't think we will ever get a perfect transformers movie but I will be honest... it still focus more on the human aspect again than that from the Autobots/Decepticon aspect and while its there it keeps going back to the relationship between a girl and her robot friend (Ergo, 'The Iron Giant' which does it a bit more better); some of the emotional connection feels forced especially in one scene with a bunch of girl bullies (you'll know when you see it.) I get it you want us to Like Charlie and in most cases we do she carries a bit of Shia's Character of Sam with her so the element feels nearly identical but with a twist, and maybe her family dynamic in some scenes and while you want to feel for her and her loss it kinda comes off hamfisted rather than flowing throughout the movie. The two decepticons while they have their funny moments felt very one dimensional; I know we aren't going to be getting Shakespeare but still at least give us bad guys who we can some what relate with in a way. Her geeky love interest while it doesn't force the romance like other films and I like that tone of it he still felt somewhat out of place to say the least.

So yes, this film is far from a perfect movie but I will have to say this is coming close. hopefully we can continue from this point and just reboot it from here which I have a funny feeling that will be the case.

If you have to see a movie (Next the Into the spider-verse) that is fun, action packed, funny and you finally get what you wanted from a transformers movie that is coherent and no Michael Bey vision up some woman's Skirt.

This movie is the one to watch for 2018 and you'll be happy for it.