I have probably been more patient with the Transformers movies than most. Like many, I sat through most of the Michael Bay movies, only to have my faith renewed with the surprisingly heart-filled Bumblebee. On top of that, Paramount Pictures goes and announces Rise of the Beasts, supposedly packed with lessons learned from the success of Bumblebee and throwing in Beast Wars, of all things.

Does it work? Yes. But Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is far from a perfect movie, and you can see that any time it tries to increase its scale. It’s a story that feels like it had writing issues, and ends up setting up a lot of promises that it forgets to deliver, or even scoring own goals against itself in its execution.

Let’s Get The Humans Out Of The Way

So, I’m gonna start this off by answering the most important question- how are the humans in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts? On a scale of Deep Wang to the chick from Bumblebee, the cast of Beasts actually ranks pretty high. Noah, a down-on-his-luck kid trying to make ends meet for his family is pretty endearing. You can really feel the soul of the movie here, as Noah is trying to provide for his sickly little brother and and ease his mother’s burden.

He’s a lot more involved than your average Transformers protagonist- the movie actually does a good job of setting parallels between him, Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal in their goals as men looking out for their own. The fact that it’s set in 90s New York also means you get a lot of the attitude of that era, complete with tagged trains and hip hop soundtrack.

On the other hand you have Elena, an intern at a museum where she’s doomed to play second fiddle to a white woman who takes credit for all her work. I don’t know how they would have balanced it out but I really with Elena was a more interesting character, since her entire role exists to just be the person who knows the next step of the plan. Maybe it’s the fact that at no point does she ever express her opinion on anything- Noah’s plans are pretty extreme and Elena basically agrees to them but with serious eyebrows to show she’s not 100% on board.

Trukk Not Munky

On the other hand, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has a fairly interesting robot cast. Mirage replaces Bumblebee as the “friend of the human” archetype, in quite an interesting way too. He’s a relatively charming character, who makes this movie kind of feel like a second attempt to do the first Transformers movie.

The real star of the show, though, is Optimus Prime. While the ending of the movie is pretty explicit about this not being tied to Michael Bay’s movies anymore, Optimus Prime in this movie shares a lot of the jaded frustration we saw in Bay Prime in between his excessive acts of violence. He’s a troubled leader, not so much because he’s inexperienced but because he’s tired. Other Autobots whisper behind his back that they see it too, and it’s a really interesting take for the character as wise as Prime to want things but not know how to get them.

That being said, I really wish whoever had done his dialogue was given more time to polish it up. There’s some good raw Optimus calls to violence in there- Despite Scourge not being a Decepticon, Optimus has decided it’s on sight, and takes every moment with Scourge to threaten him with violence. And yet, there’s many more lines of Optimus that just sound wrong, including an MCU-style “That was my kill” that feels so corporate I think the voiceline itself has stock in Hasbro.

On the other hand, I kind of wish we’d gotten to learn more about the Maximals. Most of them are basically background characters, with the exception of Optimus Primal and Airrazor. Primal and Prime’s relationship is meant to be the equivalent of a fan meeting Clark Kent before he’s Superman- but it’s never explored except for one throwaway line. Having Primal push Optimus to be a wise and powerful leader would have been a great dynamic, but all the movie gives us is the equivalent of “He looks kinda bummed out”. It feels like a waste of what’s really good casting- I mean Ron Perlman sounds great as a robot gorilla. Yet, just like a lot of the movie’s cast, he literally only exists to push the plot along.

Lost Ideas

All of this kind of boils down to what I think is the core frustration of this movie- they don’t know what they wanted out of it. You can almost see the different movies that were mashed together to make Rise of the Beasts- the parts from the “Heartful story about family”, as well as the “Summer blockbuster produced by Michael Bay” portions all stick out among each other in an unsatisfying way.

I mean, a lot of it is best example of this is the main antagonist, the Terrorcon Scourge. On one hand, he and his crew actually get to speak- something that would never happen in a Bay movie. He’s got a lot of neat characterizing traits going for him, from a creepy mask to a collection of badges he rips off corpses. Despite all this, he’s constantly pulled apart in multiple directions- in one very important fight he decides not to kill someone, using a weapon that’s never brought up again. In another one, it’s mentioned that even his touch is lethal- despite having touched Prime multiple times. And, as expected, during the final bout his mask comes off- but there’s nothing interesting going on there.

Meanwhile, compared to Bumblebee’s relatively neat third act, Beasts’ one is practically just Michael Bay pantomiming explosions with his hands. It’s back to standard fair, and is easily the worst part of the movie as a result. We’re back to hordes of faceless mooks fighting over a macguffin, The fighting isn’t as chaotic as the later Bay movies, but only narrowly so. You can tell it was written as one of the obligations of a summer blockbuster since so little that’s important actually happens in it, too.

I should point out that for anyone hoping to see the robot modes of the Maximals, don’t hold your breath. Just like the dinobots of Age of Extinction, what are undoubtedly cool designs are barely seen in the movie, and absolutely never in focus except for the few times Primal talks in robot mode. I mean, considering the movie was initially pitched as “Yo we’re doing Beast Wars!” it does feel a little bait-and-switchy that we never actually got to see the Maximals do their own thing.

Verdict

I don’t necessarily think Transformers Rise of the Beasts is bad. Like I said, most of the movie holds up very well. But considering we got the near-flawless antics of Bumblebee, it feels like seeing a franchise relapse into its worst habits. The end of the movie is so incredibly corporate that I wanted to roll my eyes hard enough that they’d make the transforming noise too.

When it’s good, it’s great- Noah is easily one of the most likable characters out of the main protagonists we’ve gotten so far, and I’m not entirely against the more cardboard secondary characters if the result is having an interesting take on more beloved ones like Optimus.

But you can feel how many of the movie’s resources were taken away to make room for that final showdown, and that’s where the pain comes. They could have had the final act literally just be Optimus and Primal tag teaming Scourge and it would have been a ender instead of what we got. There’s some ideas that are sure to annoy some fans, and they’re probably right to feel that way.

The only consolation is we haven’t gone into full Bay-regression. Like I said, there’s still some great character moments, and there’s fights where you can actually tell what’s going on. The hillside fight you see on the trailers is an absolute highlight of the movie, just because you get to see the choreographers having fun with the idea of robot cars duking it out. At the end of the day, that’s all I want from my Transformers movie.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts preview provided by United International Pictures, movie in cinemas now.