Bumblebee

Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Cena, Jason Drucker, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Schneider, John Ortiz, Dylan O'Brien (voice), Angela Bassett, Peter Cullen (voice), Justin Theroux
Directed by: Travis Knight
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Bumblebee escapes Cybertron and travels to Earth, where he must wait for the Autobots. There, he befriends a girl (Hailee Steinfeld) trying to figure out her place in the world.

Review:

Tim: By all accounts, Bumblebee was the film that would get the Transformers franchise back on track. It spun off the most popular character, didn't feature Michael Bay in the director's chair, and told a more focused, more character-driven story. Reviews were good. I went into this ready to be excited about a Transformers movie for the first time in a long time. However, what we got was more of the same. I'm pretty surprised so many people enjoyed this movie and felt like it was in any way different from the other films in the franchise. It might have had a few unique strengths, but it suffers from most of the same issues.

On the positive side, this is a more character-driven film. We don't have a host of Autobots who we need to keep straight. We just have Bumblebee. The movie really focuses on Hailee Steinfeld's character and we watch as she evolves over the course of the film. We get more time to spend with her and therefore, her character feels more developed. There's still humor, but it's been toned way down from Bay's films (the cringe worthy attempts at humor were one of the worst parts of the main franchise). What I'm saying are all positive things that certainly moved this film in the right direction. Unfortunately, it doesn't do enough to really differentiate this film. It still has so many of the flaws from the main movies.

We might not have a bunch of Autobots to keep track of, but the film's villains are just as unmemorable. I honestly couldn't tell you their names. I know they were trying to hunt down the Autobots, but they were just so one-dimensional. They were evil and blah blah, Bumblebee needed to stop them. The action scenes are toned down, but the big action spectacle was one of the things about the previous movies that allowed you to forgive the film's flaws. The Transformers films offered incredible action and terrible human scenes. This movie gets the human scenes right, but really loses some of the cool factor with forgettable action scenes. There really wasn't a single cool robot battle moment that felt different to what we've seen in all the other films. This is a smaller movie and less epic.

I liked that we got to spend time with one human character, but her story runs into the same issues as the other films. It makes no sense to have a human girl caught up in the battle between these gigantic robots. There's really nothing she could do to impact the outcome, although we're asked to believe her presence was needed. It was the same issue with Sam Witwicky. He was there because we needed human characters to relate to, not because he was important to the story. The same thing happens with Charlie. I'm sure it was great to have this grand adventure, but she was pointless in the grand scheme of things (certainly, the film tries to claim otherwise, but come on). Similarly, we once again have government officials involved, as well as the military. It just feels too close to the other movies. It's the same story regurgitated again. I did appreciate one character bemoaning the fact that the humans were trusting robots who go by the name "Decepticons", but that only highlighted the absurdity of the whole thing. A lot of these flaws were present in the original movie, but it was all so fresh and new that it was easy to overlook them. This is the 6th film in the franchise (not counting the animated original movie) and those same flaws look like gorges at this point.

I thought Hailee Steinfeld gave a good performance. She's a talented actress and made this character her own. She was one of the best parts of the film. Jorge Lendeborg Jr. didn't really add much. He was the love interest/humorous sidekick but I just wasn't buying it. John Cena was fine. I get the idea of casting him, but I wouldn't say he actively made the movie better. The rest of the cast was pretty forgettable. As a whole, I thought the cast was fine.

I did feel pretty disappointed by Bumblebee. I had hoped it would have resolved some of the issues of the previous five films. While it does attempt that, it has a whole series of additional flaws that still sink the film. At this point, I seriously question whether it's even possible to do a great Transformers movie. I think the only way that happens is to flip the formula on its head and attack it from a different direction. This movie ultimately follows too close to the other films to be very good. That being said, this movie does reverse the downward quality trajectory- it's clearly better than The Last Knight and arguably better than Age of Extinction. That being said, it's not as good as the original trilogy. I agree with critics that this movie was an improvement over the last few, but I'm surprised many people liked it. It just felt like more of the same to me.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Transformers: Age of Extinction, Transformers: The Last Knight