Review of Bumblebee (2018) by Nathan G — 31 Dec 2018

It's fairly good, but not brilliant. This is from the perspective of someone who is not a fan of Transformers, but knows the basic premise of the franchise (Autobots vs Decepticons, Optimus Prime, Megatron, etc).

Too much time is spent on Charlie (the film's lead) not really doing anything while music plays in the background. Fight scenes are also excessively drawn out and there is little to no suspense, because we know bumblebee is going to be ok, because it's a prequel.

Near the end, Bumblebee somehow magically dries himself by transforming, which comes across as a lazy mistake by the CGI team.

People in this film have an odd tendency to not try to run away from robots pointing giant guns at them. Films more often go too far the wrong way, and portray people as far more likely to run away than they really are, but I doubt anyone would just stand next to a robot that they know is trying to kill them like they do here.

Bumblebee also acts in nonsensically destructive ways sometimes. It's funny, but makes little sense for a character in his position to not try to be cautious - he's a soldier hiding from people trying to kill him, why is he wasting time and drawing attention to himself?

Despite the problems, the characters and storyline are generally good, if a little generic and predictable. From the trailer, I thought it would be similar to The Iron Giant, and I wasn't wrong - at one point I was almost expecting to hear Charlie say "You are not a gun".