Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Review

Transformers is one of Paramount’s biggest and most popular franchises. After a five-year break the Autobots return and joined with the Maximals to save the world.

Centuries ago the Maximals’ home world is devoured by Unicron (Colman Domingo) and the Maximals fled to Earth with the Transwrap Key. Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is an unemployed ex-soldier who needs to find a way to pay for his brother’s medical bills, leaving him to agree to steal a Porsche. However, the Porsche is a Transformers and Noah ends up getting involved with the Autobots just as the Key gets discovered.

The Transformers franchise is a cinematic paradox. The first four films were colossal hits with two of them crossing the billion-dollar mark. But the Michael Bay films were critically reviled. Bumblebee was critically the best-received film in the Transformers and the one fans tout as the best, but it underperformed at the box office. This underperformance resulted in the Transformers franchise reversing course.

When Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was greenlit it seemed the mandate to the filmmakers and writers was to make a film like Michael Bay but take all the things the critics didn’t like i.e. the sexualisation of women and the military propaganda. This led to Transformers: Rise of the Beast’s major issues: its bland corporate nature and being a repeat of the “Bayformers” sequels. The plot was the same as the sequels: find an ancient MacGuffin hidden on Earth before the bad guys and have a big battle.

Rise of the Beasts had a similar plot to The Last Knight. Both were treasure hunt films; Noah even makes a reference to the adventure being like Indiana Jones. Also like The Last Knight, the main villain was a planet-eating entity and there was a race to stop it. Rise of the Beasts was filled with scenes and ideas lifted from previous films. There was a scene early in Rise of the Beasts that replicate a major event in Revenge of the Fallen, the final battle involved a sky beam, just like Dark of the Moon and there was a prologue about how the artifact arrived on Earth. This made Rise of the Beasts look like cinematic recycling.

The corporate nature of The Rise of Beasts also extended to the characters. They were thin, with barely any personality. The differences between them were superficial. Say what you will about the Bay films, I could tell the Autobots apart in Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction.

The only Transformers in Rise of the Beasts that stood up were Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Mirage (Pete Davidson). Fans know what to expect from Optimus Prime by this point and he was in full fighting mood during the final arc. His characterisation was different since he distrusted humans and he was given an arc. However, Cullen sounded tired of playing the role that he’s most famous for. Mirage took the place of Bumblebee as the young, cocky member of the Autobots who brought Noah to the Autobots. Tolerance for the character depends on how much you like Pete Davidson since he is a Marmite performer. I personally found Mirage grating.

The humour in the film was on the irritating side. Despite the filmmakers trying to take out the worst aspects of Bay’s comedy, there were elements that felt lifted from the Bay films. The humour was broad and at times based on stereotypes. This was the case with Reek (Tobe Nwigne), Noah’s criminal recruiter. His defining trait was he liked to eat Twizzlers. There was a joke where Noah gets called racist since he questioned why Wheeljack (Cristo Fernández) had a Mexican accent. It felt like something from the Bay era.

In the past I have enjoyed parts of the “Bayformers” films since they appealed to my inner child. I couldn’t help but smile when Optimus Prime flew around with a jetpack and fought a robot dinosaur. There were flashes of that in Rise of the Beasts. The prologue gave me some childish glee since it had a robot gorilla fighting another robot. I felt the same when both Optimuses inspired their troops before the climactic battle. However, the final battle fell into the MCU trap where everything was shot on a green screen and it was an overload of CGI. It was perfectly good CGI, but it felt weightless. At least Bay shot his action sequences on location.

Rise of the Beasts was a big step backward for the Transformers franchise. It’s a real shame because Bumblebee was a film made by fans and showed a Transformers film can have a lot of heart. Paramount should learn from The LEGO Movie and Super Mario Bros. Movie since those films could be advertisements and good family entertainment.