Review of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) by Spartancookie — 14 Jun 2023

I walked into this movie wanting to watch robots fight and pieces of scrap flying with explosions in the background. I do not walk into such a movie to watch the struggles of humans or a deeper reflection on topics like society or other philosophical titles. So a "good story" is not my main focus.

Although the human element is present and (much weaker and less fleshed out than previous entries) the movie absolutely delivers on robot on robot action. Although none of the fights are comparable to the iconic choreographed fights Michael Bay gave us (Optimus v Bone crusher in 2007, The Forest Battle in Revenge of the Fallen or just about anything in the second half of Dark of the Moon) they are acceptable.

Overall the story is sufferable but very condensed. Everything happens just too quickly because the movie had to get somewhere by the end but wanted to do so much before then that you end up with less impactful sequences that are over before they even start. If there was ever a movie that needed to be a two parter but wasn't, it's this.

Having both the Maximals and Autobots in one film makes it feel like two entirely different franchises are being juggled and fighting for screen time. We also learn very little of the Maximals as their full group introduction only happens much later in the movie.

I am at least familiar with the faction but those who only know about the main gang from prior movies or the mainstream cartoons will feel lost for the most part. Their presence, due to the condensed structure also feels underutilised.

Irrespective, these factors would not take away much from a mindless enjoyable action movie I described in my opening paragraph.

The movie was going strong at a 9/10 enjoyable movie, until the climax...

Steve Jablonsky's epic and fitting score which elevated Bay's films from mindless CGI brawls to epic set pieces has been pushed aside for... rap and hip hop. Someone legitimately watched Avengers Endgame's final fight and said, "You know what would make this better? If we took away the Avengers theme and blasted Eminem or Kendrick Lamar, instead!".

It felt like a hipster millennials' Spotify playlist of the day instead of a proper curated soundtrack throughout the movie and has taken Transformers from the visual epic to Transformers from the Bronx and to state his is "mildly infuriating" would be an understatement.

Wheeljack's design is garbage. They took him from the white with green and red stripes with side fins to a rusty borderline soft and effeminate nerd with a Spanish Accent and glasses to make a "is it racist to assume you can speak Spanish with that accent" joke. Ratchet was far better than this...

Finally (MINOR SPOILER), and this was the point were the movie just completely lost me, Transformers can now shrink their parts and become exo-suits for humans making them just as powerful if not more powerful than transformers themselves. So get ready for Transformer Iron Man people because this movie makes it a thing and it looks terrible. The music would have honestly dropped it to a 7/10 but this solidified its place at a just-average 6. It felt so goofy and out of place.

In conclusion:

This movie delivers fights that are acceptable but still find themselves in the shadow of those that came before.

The humans are probably the weakest so far compared to the others in previous films.

The condensed and sometimes rushed structure makes balancing and juggling its entire cast of Transforms very difficult despite not even being that big.

The climax is ruined by out of place and ill fitting music genres and some of the stupidest and most immature "this is so cool guys" choices I have ever seen in the franchise.

All these faults culminate to create an average movie carried hard by the visual spectacle of its battles.