The history of the Transformers movies over the last sixteen years has been an exhausting, frustrating, and mostly terrible experience. From 2007 to 2017, Michael Bay made five Transformers films, each more brain-meltingly terrible than the last, a series that ignored things like story or character in order to have giant robot aliens smash against each other in inexplicable fight scenes. But after 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight—truly in the competition for one of the worst blockbuster movies ever made—the franchise finally figured itself out with 2018’s Bumblebee. This spinoff/prequel/soft reboot attempted a smaller scale story that actually cared about the characters—human and robot alike—and showed that this series could have the absurd, crazy action that Bay was going for, but with the fundamental tools of storytelling that the previous five films mostly lacked.
COLLIDER VIDEO OF THE DAYSCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts comes five years after the release of Bumblebee—the longest gap in this series so far without an installment—and seems to be an attempt to follow up on what Bumblebee did by setting up an all-new story that puts as much care into its human characters as it does its robots-in-disguise. And yet, Rise of the Beasts, from director Steven Caple Jr., feels like it wants to be a blend of what Bay set up, mixed with the successes of Bumblebee. The result is a franchise that seems like it’s still heading in the right direction quality-wise, but continues to struggle in how to make this story work as anything more than a way to sell toys.

What Is ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ About?

Image via Universal 

Rise of the Beasts gives us our latest Sam Witwicky/whatever-the-hell-Mark-Wahlberg’s-character-was-named in Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), a former military guy who is good with electronics and lives with his mother (Luna Lauren Vélez) and brother (Dean Scott Vazquez) in Brooklyn. Noah’s been struggling to find a job and a way to pay for his sick brother’s medical bills, and out of desperation, he agrees to steal a car. But as is the case with pretty much every car someone gets into in this franchise, there’s more than meets the eye as this car is Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson), a member of the Autobots.

RELATED: ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Director Steven Caple Jr. Reveals Why He Cut an Optimus Prime Fight Scene From the Film

Coincidentally around this time, Elena (Dominique Fishback), an intern at a museum who knows more about the artifacts they receive than her boss does, discovers that a bird sculpture with strange markings is actually what is known as a Transwarp Key, a tool that can open portals in space-time. This is especially of interest to Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo), the franchise’s new villain, a planet-eating robot, who can use this key to take over the world. But for the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen), and including Mirage, Bumblebee, and Acree (voiced by Liza Koshy), this key is the team’s way to finally return home to Cybertron.

With both Noah and Elena worried that the Autobots might prioritize their own survival and well-being over that of Earth, the pair joins the Autobots to try and find both parts of the Transwarp Key before Unicron’s team of Terrorcons finds them and takes over the universe. Along this journey, the Autobots also meet the Maximals, another robot team that disguises themselves as animals who already had their world destroyed by Unicron. This team is led by Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman), who looks like a giant robot gorilla, and Airazor (voiced by Michelle Yeoh), a giant robot falcon. The Autobots, Terrorcons, as well as Noah and Elena, do what they can to stop Unicorn before he gets the power to destroy everything.

‘Rise of the Beasts’ Does a Solid Job With Its Characters

Image via Universal 

Rise of the Beasts takes Bumblebee’s lead in terms of making sure to prioritize character before making with the bang-bang-smash-smash. The screenplay from Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber takes the time to explore the human characters and allow us to care about them before they ever interact with an Autobot. But arguably more important is that Rise of the Beasts brings humanity to the Autobots—particularly Optimus Prime. Set in 1994, Rise of the Beasts takes place before Bay’s films, and introduces us to a Prime who is untrustworthy of humans, and isn’t willing to rely on them for the Autobots’ survival. Rise of the Beasts plays with both Noah and Optimus Prime’s uncertainty over the other, and while it’s not much, it’s certainly more development for the most famous Transformer than we’ve ever had in this series.

Ramos and Fishback are also nice additions to this universe, and the film’s first half, which primarily takes place in mid-90s New York, is a fun tone for this film to play with, complete with a great soundtrack and cultural references that don’t feel forced in. Ramos does a solid job of playing a sympathetic hero that can also handle himself in the heat of battle. Some of the most exciting parts of Transformers center around Ramos’ character in the final act, and where this story could go in the future. Unfortunately, Fishback gets lost in the film’s second half, stuck looking for symbols and messages while everyone else is engaged in the fight. If this is the beginning of a new trilogy as has been stated previously, hopefully, it will do right by Fishback and give her more to do.

Rise of the Beasts also plays up the danger of having truly evil robots loose in our world, as Caple Jr. introduces horror elements throughout the film. In the first scene where Noah and Elena meet at a museum, there’s a genuine tension and fear that Unicron’s minions could find and kill them, and with jump scares and excellent use of shadows that could hide monstrous robots, we finally feel the danger of these villains for the first real time in this series. Even Scourge (voiced by Peter Dinklage), the leader of the Terrorcons, has a quite terrifying look that also embraces this attempt at lite-horror.

But ‘Rise of the Beasts’ Still Follows Bay in Some Ways

Image via Paramount Pictures

While Caple Jr. does build on what Bumblebee began, he also attempts to follow in the footsteps of Bay in some ways. While the first half is a charming exploration of 90s New York, the second half takes our team to Peru for a MacGuffin hunt, as there’s always some key or some clue that needs to be found, lest the world ends in an instant. This shift makes the film lose much of its character, and even in this seventh installment, the Transformers series has yet to find a plot more interesting than just searching for an item that has been hidden for centuries.

It’s also in this second half that the action begins to become more generic than it was in NYC. The fights are certainly more coherent than those in the Bay films, but they still rely primarily on two massive robots smashing against each other in a clashing of metal-on-metal. At a certain point, the potential for these scenes goes out the window, and the audience is left watching a mash of CGI that doesn’t do anything all that interesting. Again, the utilization of the humans in the big action sequences makes this a bit more personal and intriguing, but these fights still don’t quite get to where they should be.

Which might overall be the lesson from Rise of the Beasts: it’s decent, but it’s never at the level that it should be after all these installments, years, and trial and error. The action is improved from the Bay films, but it still gets mundane at a point. The characters are stronger than usual, but the story is still a generic hunt for a mythical item we couldn’t care less about it. It’s funny—mostly thanks to Davidson, who is a welcome surprise here—but never hilarious. It’s as though Rise of the Beasts is fine with just skating by and never putting the effort into making these movies truly exciting.

After the dregs of the first five Transformers films, Bumblebee felt like the shot in the arm that this series needed to make it what it should’ve been all this time. Coming off that, Rise of the Beasts feels like both a step forward and a step back. The same thing happened with Caple Jr. when he directed Creed II after Ryan Coogler revitalized the Rocky franchise with Creed. That sequel also saw Caple Jr. following in the footsteps of what Coogler built, but still falling back on the elements of the past that the previous film was trying to avoid. The same thing happens with Rise of the Beasts, which has decent plans on where this series should head going forward, but still can’t get past the detritus that those first five films were. Like with Bumblebee, Rise of the Beasts shows that there is promise to be had in this world, but at this point, if Transformers is indeed more than meets the eye, it’s time for us to be shown that.

Rating: C+

Transformers: Rise of the Beast comes to theaters on June 9.