Bumblebee Review

Michael Bay’s version of Transformers is the series that film fans love to hate despite making $4.38 billion worldwide. Now the series has been given a soft reboot with a new creative team taking over the franchise.

The planet of Cybertron has fallen to the Decepticons and Optimus Prime sends the Autobots to other planets to set up a new safe haven. One of them is the young scout B-127 (Dylan O’Brien) who is sent to Earth. But when he lands on Earth in 1987 B-127 gets attacked by the US military and a Decepticon, losing his voice and memory in the process.

Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) is a grieving 18-year-old. She discovers a yellow beetle and brings it home to fix. It turns out the car is the robot that she names Bumblebee.

Bumblebee was made by people who clearly loved the original cartoon. Director Travis Knight and his designer use the G1 designs of popular like Optimus, Wheeljack, Shockwave, and Soundwave and the prologue on Cybertron is like an animated film. The designs are much simpler than in the Bay films and the writer goes for a back-to-basics approach – simplifying the story. The Bay films become obsessed with governmental conspiracy and mythology that kept getting contradicted – Bumblebee simply focuses on the effect of the robot on a troubled girl.

When 2007’s Transformers was being made Steven Spielberg suggested that it should be centred around a boy and his car. But it was done through Michael Bay’s distinct lens. Bumblebee uses the same centre – focusing on a teenage girl and her robot car – and the filmmakers made the film more child-friendly. Gone are the crude jokes, sexualise portrayals of women and most swearing has been removed.

Knight and writer Christina Hodson borrowed from Spielberg – particularly E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – when making Bumblebee. Both films focus on the friendship between a young person and an alien, which the young person has to hide. Some scenes like Bumblebee’s destruction of the family home were similar to what E.T. did in his film and Bumblebee has Spielbergian themes like the loss of a parent – the small town setting and kids having to face-off against the governmental forces. Bumblebee also has elements from the Superman mythos. Like Superman Bumblebee is sent to Earth to protect the planet from alien forces.

Whilst the Bay films do suffer from a lot of criticism, they were popular and had a fan base. The special effects were second-to-none and there were moments that pleased my inner 10-year-old. Bumblebee matches the Bay films’ special effects and action and the film does have some Easter Egg from the previous series.

Bumblebee is the first film in the live-action franchise to give female characters major roles. In the Bay films female characters were either love issues, sex objects, or comic relief. Bay liked to leer at teenage characters’ mid-riff or bottoms. Charlie is a rock chick and a grease monkey and the character was a lot like her role in Edge of Seventeen – both characters were outcasts even within their own families and grieving over their deceased fathers. Her relationship with Bumblebee allows Charlie to open up and be happy again and both Charlie and Bumblebee fix each other.

Bumblebee has the best depiction of Decepticons in the live-action franchise. Decepticons were just grey robots with little personality and were basically cannon fodder in the Bay films. There were only two main Decepticons in this film, Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux) and the production team make some simple yet wise decisions. Both characters were made red and blue making them identifiable and they had screentime to show off their personalities. Shatter was the cold-and-calculating leader and Dropkick was headstrong and violent.  They were stronger then Bumblebee – making the challenge even greater for the character.

The trailers show Shatter and Dropkick forming an alliance with the US military which seemed like the film was falling for the same trap where humanity was incredibly stupid. Bumblebee at least has some self-awareness; one of the characters in the military state it might not be a good idea to trust robots called Decepticons and Cold War politics was used as a justification to form an alliance.

Bumblebee does everything it sets out to do – it will please old fans of the franchises and kids. It’s a solid, simple restart to the series whilst making references to the previous versions of the franchise.