Review of Bumblebee (2018) by Greg C — 01 Jan 2019

My stroll through contrarian land continues. Perhaps despite of and perhaps because of my elevated hopes, Bumblebee lands as a disappointment. No one can slight Tranformers movies for being computer generated spectacles.

My problem here is the weakness of story, in a Transformers universe that does not seem to be consistent within itself. The power levels of decepticons vs. autobots in any interaction seems unpredictable.

At one point the generally balletic Bumblebee wreaks havoc in our lead female's home out of sheer klutziness that doesn't really move the main story. Hailee Steinfeld works really hard to pull off her character arc and the relationship with B.

To use another movie for reference, I think I bought into Dwayne Johnson's relationship to George, the CG Gorilla, in Rampage more. There is a key moment where Hailee's character must use her talent for high diving to .

.. "dive",.. to save B presumably(?). But there is really no purpose to her dive and no payoff, beyond the fact that she internally has built up the nerve to do it. Props to Pamela Adlon in the role of Hailee's mom; I really like her work.

This VW Beetle incarnation brings to mind old Herbie the Love Bug movies for the obvious reason, and also for it absurdist comedic tone. Bumblebee is cute and fun, but unless you have a 5 year old in tow, it is probably a better decision to see Into the Spider-verse or Aquaman.