TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS REVIEW

“One of the more entertaining installments of the franchise, which hopefully will pave the way for more with these characters.”

I almost feel like I should preface any review I ever write for any “Transformers” movie with the caveat that I’m just a little bit older than your average “Transformers” fan who got into the toys as kids in the ‘80s or ‘90s… or maybe they’re adults and still into the toys. No judgments. I never was into the toys, though I probably had some of the early Marvel tie-in comics at one point. That said, I sometimes wonder if I should even review these movies, because despite my reading comics on the regular, I just can’t seem to take the core principle of Transformers very seriously, similar to my (maybe disdain is too strong a word) towards “Star Wars.”

Either way, “Rise of the Beasts” is essentially a relaunch with new director Steven Caple Jr. of Creed II talking over those reins, but it’s also set in 1994, so it takes place between 2018’s Bumblebee (set in the ‘80s) and Michael Bay’s movies (other than the unfortunate flashbacks). Clearly, the filmmakers learned a lot from how well Bumblebee worked, so for this one, they introduce some better-developed human characters around the transforming robots. More on them in a bit.

Hundreds of years ago, the Dark God Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo), the eater of worlds, sent his minion, Scourge (voiced by Peter Dinklage), to earth to recover the Transwarp Key, which allows beings to travel between worlds. In Unicron’s case, it’s intended to find worlds for it to eat and essentially destroy, but the Autobots need it to return home to rejoin the battle with the Decepticons. During this flashback, we also meet some robotic animals, who we’ll learn later are called Maximals.

In 1994 New York, we meet Anthony Ramos’ Noah Diaz, a soldier trying to find a job while also caring for his younger brother Kris. We also meet Dominique Fishback’s Elena, an intern at a natural history museum who discovers an ancient artifact that doesn’t seem to fit in place with what her boss presumes. They eventually connect after Noah gets involved with trying to steal a luxury car that turns out to be the Autobot Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson). Noah and Elena are quickly thrown into the battle between the Autobots and Scourge’s “Terrorcons,” who are trying to retrieve the key from Elena’s place of work. They’re eventually joined by Maximal Airazor (voiced by Michelle Yeoh), and they all travel to Peru looking for the other half of said key.

Granted, that might seem like a fairly silly plot, but for a Transformers movie, it’s actually not so bad, and because the movie does spend more time establishing the human characters before going too far down the Autobot/Terrorcon/Maximal wormhole, that helps the viewer get into the overarching story. Both Ramos and Fishback are extremely likeable, and they interact well with what are essentially voice roles by actors that probably were never on set. There are some Transformers OGs like Peter Cullen (of course), although others like John DiMaggio and Liza Koshy blend in well with the bigger stars among the cast. I also really liked Davidson’s portrayal of Mirage even after I realized it was him, because he does bring the movie better comic relief than we’ve seen in many of the Bay movies. He gives Mirage way more character than just about any other robot on either side of the battle. 

Beyond that, the action set pieces are all pretty fantastic, whether it’s Noah being chased by police cars through New York or the actual robot battles. The latter is where we really get to see how terrific the visual effects work has gotten in terms of giving all the robots real weight and character. (Props to the sound team for their aid in the first part of that and the score by Jongnic Bontemps, overseen by original composer Steven Jablonsky, helping with the latter.) It’s a shame that this installment wasn’t able to score the usual IMAX screens, although I believe it will get some 3D and other premium formats.

You have to give huge props to Caple for a creating a “Transformers” movie on par with Bumblebee, but one with far bigger stakes and scale and human characters you genuinely like. In that sense, Rise of the Beasts is one of the more entertaining installments of the franchise, which hopefully will pave the way for more with these characters.

Rating: 7.5/10

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opens nationwide on Friday, June 9, with previews on Thursday night.