Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

It’s been quite a while since I watched a Transformers movie. I had a couple of the toys growing up (I seem to remember a scorpion?), but I was never into them beyond that. I never watched the show, nor The Transformers: The Movie. It was never anything special to me, so when they first announced the Michael Bay movie, I was pretty indifferent. When I finally saw it, I remember it being pretty cool, but nothing that was destined to stay with me too long. Little did I know that 16 years later, we’d be six films in and about to begin a new trilogy. I only saw a few of those sequels, and besides a new Linkin Park song, nothing stuck in my head. But after the success of Bumblebee 5 years ago, I had hope for this one.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts begins with a big exposition dump. Unicron (Colman Domingo), a gigantic planet-eating, god-like being, is ravaging the homeworld of the Maximals, Autobot descendants which take animal forms instead of cars. He sends his lackeys to retrieve the Transwarp Key, an artifact which will allow him to open a portal to anywhere in space and thus spread his destruction across the universe. So a handful of the Maximals take the Key and escape to Earth to keep it safe.

Our hook into the story comes in two separate threads. Elena (Dominique Fishback) is working in a museum cataloging and identifying artifacts while others take the credit. She comes across a bird statue with strange markings, and is determined to figure out its origins. Meanwhile, Noah (Anthony Ramos) is desperate for a job to help pay for his brother’s sickle cell treatments, leading him to steal a Porsche. But when Elena’s investigation causes the Key to call out to the Autobots and Terracons, Noah discovers the Porche he’s inside is actually Mirage (Pete Davidson), drawing both humans into a conflict far bigger than either of them could have expected.

By giving us a bunch of lore up top, which we then leave behind as we establish the human characters, we’re left with only one way the plot could unfold. Nothing can be a surprise: with so much explanation, omitting important details from the setup would come across as a poorly executed deus ex machina, and aspects not utilized would feel like a waste of our time. With the heavy focus on a MacGuffin, we know all the major plot beats that are gonna play out, and the way each act of the film is going to end. And so we’re left tapping our feet, waiting for the story to progress from point to point, not particularly engaged since we know each event that’s yet to happen.

That can work, of course. A predictable plot can serve as solid framework to do some interesting character work, and/or as a foundation on top of which to add a fresh take on that tale. But it’s inherently harder to maintain tension in that situation, so you can’t expect your audience to be on the edge of their seats. We know where we’re going, and if you’ve seen enough modern blockbusters, you have an good idea of the “rules”, further undermining the suspense. So when the movie stops to try to let the impact of an action beat sink in, it just gives us time to think about how it’s just going to be undone, since the blueprint won’t allow it to stick.

Which is a sin this movie is constantly guilty of. It treats like a surprise that the artifact Elena finds is only one part of two. The movie wants us to be impressed when we come across the rest of the Maximals after Airazor (Michelle Yeoh) claims to be the last. It expects us to be concerned when Scourge (Peter Dinklage) and the rest of the Terracons are summoned when the first part of the Key is found. And unsurprisingly, there are many more once we cross into spoiler territory.

None of the dramatic connective tissue that does exist is particularly compelling. It’s made of pretty basic, cliched ideas, where our main characters are put upon by the world, driving them to the plot. It sets up family as a theme, and teases that it’s going to do something a bit more personal but it never really develops. Elena is especially done dirty by the script, as we have no clue what her goals are, just that she’s clearly very good with artifacts and identifying ancient symbols. Noah’s introduction to the Autobots is pretty lackluster, in part owing to how tossed off the transformations are. All these interactions are further weakened by the number of times Noah lampshades just how stupid everything going on is.

Not even the fight scenes manage to bring anything interesting to the table. None of their abilities look particularly good, nor are they creative. They’re not terribly shot or composited, they just don’t offer anything to marvel at. Characters show up at the most convenient times, and the stakes feel incredibly low. Even when characters die, we don’t feel anything, because we know that in a trilogy of this scale they can always invent a way to bring the characters back, if not in this movie then at least in a sequel. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) even states as much. The only truly shocking way to raise the stakes would have been for Optimus Prime himself to die, a possibility raised by the presence of Unicron reminding us of The Transformers: The Movie.

There was one bit of narrative intrigue: Noah planning to destroy the second half of the Key. It’s a sensible plan, since although it would trap the Autobots on Earth (until the writers invent some other way home…), it would prevent Unicron from reaching Earth. In fact, Noah’s motivation is the same as Optimus Prime’s: to take care of his own people. Elena is opposed to the idea for some reason, basically just pointing at Optimus Prime and saying “What he said!”, because as previously mentioned, she’s not a very well written character. The way that whole plot point plays out is very frustrating, owing in large part to the poorly thought out characters.

You’ll note I haven’t mentioned the humor yet. That’s because it’s not a funny movie in the least, although it desperately wants to be. Everyone’s attempts fall flat, leaving them even less charming than they would be on the page. And the Autobot flavor is simply to be ridiculous, which comes across as dumb far more often than fun.

I should also mention a very strange exchange when they first arrive in Peru. In it, this movie seems to push back against a criticism of Michael Bay dating back to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen from 2009? Skids and Mudflap were called racist, minstrel like characters, much like Jar Jar Binks from the Star Wars prequels. In this film, Wheeljack (Cristo Fernández) speaks with a Mexican accent, Noah comments on it and is rebuffed for being racist, to which he responds “He’s a robot. How can that be racist?”

Which partially reveals the odd relationship this movie has with its predecessors. Despite being set before the events of all the prior films except Bumblebee and presenting itself as stand-alone, it leans heavily on you knowing the Transformers’ deal. I don’t expect it to completely retread 2007’s Transformers, but that it fails to lay down even some of the most basic aspects of the world while opting instead to give us additional lore was bizarre.

As a whole, this movie is boring, dumb, and predictable, has no interesting ideas in any dimension, and has no visuals worth mentioning. It’s just an attempt to capitalize on the surprise success of Bumblebee. Thing is, audiences never really cared about an ongoing series of this property, and to some degree Bumblebee succeeded because it was stand-alone. But seems like we’re getting two more of these. Strap in.