Worth: $15.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Dean Scott Vasquez, Ron Perlman, Peter Cullen, Pete Davidson, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh
Intro:
… just a really fun action flick.
After a sudden but welcome gear shift with 2018’s Bumblebee, the series that has become a favourite punching bag for critics and nerdy audiences alike seems to have found its lane with this latest Beast Wars-flavoured follow-up.
Moving up into the ‘90s, complete with enough Hip Hop needle drops to get old heads nodding before any robots even turn up, this continues the more emotive approach of Bumblebee, while also incorporating the globetrotting MacGuffin hunt pacing of the Bay films. Rather than feeling like it’s going out of its way to be different, this is more of a refinement of that same formula.
Not that changes aren’t made. The story still focuses quite a bit on the human characters, namely Anthony Ramos’ Noah and Dominique Fishback’s Elena, but they make for a drastic improvement over the Unicron-sized pile of cringe which accompanied POC representation in the Bayverse. There’s no Jazz, Skids, Mudflap, or Deep Wang to speak of here, and some of the dialogue even pokes fun at that previous attitude. Hell, Noah’s consistent showings of bravery and general ballsiness arguably upstages the giant robots, making his presence in the action-packed finale feel more than earned.
Then again, this is coming from Creed II director Steven Caple Jr., who is familiar with redeeming awkward aspects of a franchise’s lengthy history. Black nerds behind the camera have been going strong lately, between this and the heavy anime influences in Jordan Peele’s Nope and Michael B. Jordan’s Creed III.
While Noah’s bond with his kid brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez) is heartfelt, and Elena’s balance of book and street smarts is a great addition to the main group… this is still a film about big-screen Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em action first and foremost, and that aspect is still as solid as an Energon cube. It maintains the more controlled camera framing of Bumblebee, meaning that action scenes are actually legible and memorable, and the robots themselves are as cool as ever.
Optimus Prime and Bumblebee kick arse like always, Pete Davidson as Mirage shows that he learnt real quick from the mistakes made in Marmaduke, delivering some of his best acting work to date, and the rest of the casting for the newcomers borders on ingenious. Ron Perlman as Optimus Primal is a pick that implies zero CGI, the man fits the role that well, and Peter Dinklage really puts the Terror in Terrorcon as Scourge. Also, Michelle Yeoh continues to show that she can shine while doing anything, anywhere, all at once.
Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, aside from proving that Bumblebee wasn’t a fluke and giving audiences another excuse to ignore that The Last Knight ever happened, is just a really fun action flick. It struggles somewhat with juggling all the different characters and story ideas (that’ll happen with five credited screenwriters), but it builds a sturdy bridge between Michael Bay’s mayhem spectacle and Travis Knight’s stop-motion-influenced patience to show that this franchise is most assuredly getting its second wind. And with the direction set up by the ending, it may not be the only one…
