Review: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Every new Transformers movie starts with a question. Will this finally be the film where a robot transforms with a human inside and crushes them to death? Of course not. But Transformers: Rise of the Beasts poses an all-new question: why would transforming robots on another planet take on the form of animals from Earth? Especially when they're giant sized robots that could in no way be confused for the thing they're trying to imitate?

Our story begins with the long-awaited arrival of planet-eating-planet Unicron (Colman Domingo in a role originated by Orson Wells) who sends his underling Scourge (Peter Dinklage) onto an alien world to get the Transwarp Key, a device that will enable Unicron to travel anywhere in the universe. Scourge and his sidekicks wreak havoc, only to find the Key's animal-style transformer guardians the Maximals have escaped with it (so Unicron eats the planet). Smash cut to Earth, that unknown backwater that transforming robots just can't stay away from. 

The year is 1994, the place is New York, and while museum intern Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) studies an ancient statue that in no way resembles the Transwarp Key, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) struggles to find a job despite his skill with electronics - especially when it comes to getting free cable TV.

When Elena breaks open the statue to reveal the Key (well, half of it) it sends out a pulse that alerts boss truck Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, back again), who summons a collection of autobots that includes Bumblebee and fellow car Mirage (Pete Davidson). Mirage is in the middle of being stolen by Diaz, but as Mirage is the kind of transformer that likes humans - unlike Optimus Prime, who is pretty much a space racist for much of this film - he brings him along on their mission to grab the key before Scourge and his evil crew turn up.

Obviously the Maximals, notably their gorilla leader Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and the falcon-like Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), are going to turn up, but not until a bunch of fight scenes and setbacks sees everyone head to Peru for more fights and setbacks. It's a mcguffin-driven movie that's all about ancient relics and lost tombs; they even make an Indiana Jones joke.

With Michael Bay now out of the transforming business, the series - both this and 2018's Bumblebee were prequels to Bay's run of films - has lowered its sights a little, preferring to build up the human characters and keep the fight scenes to a semi-plausible scale and length.

The result is undoubtedly more satisfying on a basic storytelling level: these are solid films, in contrast to Bay's garbled brain-vomit. Unfortunately, they also lack the impact and sheer insanity that Bay brought to the story of giant alien transforming robots that turn into cars and trucks then trash the planet.

On the up side, now the humans are playing actual plausible human beings, while the robots come across as real characters distinct from each other. The stakes are no less enormous and over-the-top, but now the characters' struggles in the shadow of armageddon have at least some dramatic weight: when somebody dies, it means more than just one less mass of pixels gyrating around on screen.

Director Steven Caple Jr (Creed II) serves up a perfectly respectable and often exciting tale of giant transforming robots and the humans who love them, but there are times when Bay's demented approach to what is always going to be the violent adventures of giant toys feels sorely missed. Who can forget the time Shia LeBeof and Megan Fox made out on the bonnet of a transformer while another transformer watched? And now the transformers are sending heartwarming messages to sick kids. 

Hollywood needs to transform back into a pit of depravity before they start thinking a wholesome Barbie movie is a good idea oh wait.

- Anthony Morris