The following may contain spoilers for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
Director / Steven Caple Jr.
Screenplay / Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber
Production / Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, Hasbro, New Republic Pictures, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Bay Films
Release Date / June 2023
Before we dive deep into this movie, let’s do a quick retrospective on where the live action Transformers movie franchise was prior to the release of this film. By the time of Transformers: The Last Knight in 2017, it was obvious that its target audience had enough of the problems that had plagued the series. Heck, I didn’t even bother watching the movie. And to no one’s surprise, the folks over at Hasbro and Paramount took this as a trigger point to do some necessary course correction on this movie franchise. They immediately cancelled any succeeding movies in the pipeline, and revamped Bumblebee to be a pseudo reboot. While Bumblebee performed okay in the box office, it was a definite step in the right direction. Picking up from the response Bumblebee got, they decided to move forward with Transformers: Rise of The Beasts, a return to the epic blockbuster films they did previous while, hopefully, integrating all the course corrections they got from Bumblebee.
Similar to previous films, Rise of the Beasts opens with a prologue on an unspecified Maximal home planet where we see the Terrorcons, led by Scourge, are looking for a Transwarp Key – a device that can open gates though time and space and allow Unicron to devour worlds. The Terrorcons and Maximals had a battle resulting in the death of their previous leader Apelinq, but also allow Optimus Primal and his crew to escape and prevent Unicron from obtaining the key. Fast forward to 1994, several years after the events of Bumblebee, where we see our team of Autobots stuck on Earth, and Optimus Prime feels the guilt of placing them in this predicament. We are then introduced to a couple of new human characters, Noah Diaz, and Elena Wallace, who get involved with the search for the Transwarp Key and brings everyone to Peru where we eventually meet the rest of the Maximals led by Optimus Primal.
For starters, it is so refreshing to watch a Transformers movie without the cringe and crass humor you’d expect from Michael Bay. We still have a good amount of focus on humans, but Noah, played by Anthony Ramos, and Elena, played by Dominique Fishback, are actual characters that you can relate with and understand why they are going with this whole situation. They even have a little conflict of their own on whether they’d actually want to help the Autobots at the possible expense of Earth. Then we get to the actual Transformers, and they’re finally treated as actual characters rather than just set pieces the humans can act with. Sure, we’ll likely prefer a Transformers movie with just the Transformers, but the way they depict the Autobots and Maximals are vastly different from how they were shown previously.
Speaking of Autobots, let’s talk about Mirage, and I like Mirage. He’s not the kid-appeal character like Bumblebee was, but he genuinely comes across as someone you’d want to hang out with. Pete Davidson does what he always does and gives a great vocal performance to bring Mirage and his personality across. The way he interacts with Noah is very natural, making all the nineties references without being too overbearing, and you actually buy their partnership, especially during the climax of the third act. The other character I didn’t expect to get an actual arc is Optimus Prime. For all the Michael Bay movies, he’s already the stoic and straight Autobot leader (with some homicidal tendencies). But in Rise of the Beasts, Optimus Prime comes in not only with the guilt of stranding their Autobot crew on Earth, but with trust issues towards the humans as well. I also like how he has more natural dialogue in this film, even making witty remarks and some jokes that will definitely give you a chuckle or two.
Helping both Optimus Prime and Noah to go beyond their trust issues is Optimus Primal, who comes across as a more experienced leader than his namesake. He stays mostly in beast mode for most of the film, but his rather large gorilla face allows him to express more emotions. This is clearly evident during the scene when he has to reluctantly kill Airazor after being compromised by Scourge. Ron Pearlman has refined his Optimus Primal performance and does it better in this film than his first attempt with Machinima’s Prime Wars Trilogy series. The way such deaths are handled in Rise of the Beasts are in complete contrast to how they were portrayed in previous films where they feel very inconsequential. On that note, Airazor was mainly there to be the voice of reason and this all thanks to Michelle Yeoh’s performance. Unfortunately, the way the character was handled might come across as ‘fridging’ and I do agree to an extent.
In the complete opposite, I do like how they ‘killed’ Bumblebee and removed him for a good amount of the film. It’s like the producers are ready to move on from Bumblebee being the kid appeal character, which also gives room for Mirage, and Optimus Prime to shine more. That said, the way he’s revived towards the end is awesome and he gets one of the spotlight scenes during the climactic battle.
For a movie titled Rise of the Beasts, we didn’t get to see much rising from the beasts outside of Optimus Primal and Airazor. Cheetor and Rhinox were relegated to background characters, and I don’t even think Rhinox had a line of dialogue outside of that growl he made during his first appearance. If they continue with the trilogy of films started by Rise of the Beasts, I would definitely love to see more Cheetor and Rhinox. On the other hand, the Terrorcons were mostly glorified henchmen for Unicron. Sure, Scourge has an intimidating persona and all, but beyond the intimidation, he’s as vanilla as a villain you can get. They did throw a line of how his planet was also consumed by Unicron but other than that, we get nothing of why he has this dedication outside of just being a slave. There were theories that he could be Optimus Prime from the Michael Bay movies that got corrupted, but nothing in the film supports that theory so that’s it for scourge. Though you had to admit they were awesome during their fights with the Autobots and Maximals.
The visuals were also a significant improvement, coming from the heels of what they learned from Bumblebee. While we still get some of the cringe stuff from the Michael Bay movies, I’m looking at you Stratosphere, all the rest were not metallic vomit, and you can easily follow what’s going on in the screen. Even with the generic CGI horde in the last battle, you still know who’s fighting what. The same goes for the sound design. I noticed when I watched clips of the battles from the Michael Bay movies that most of the blaster sound effects and explosions, while grand spectacles to look at, weren’t so grand-sounding and came across as soft ‘pew-pew’ noises. Meanwhile for Rise of the Beasts, from the transformation to the weapons, you can feel the weight and impact of each weapon being used and fired. Speaking of sounds, I also loved the soundtrack and how it integrated nineties hip-hop to the score. It’s just as noticeable to let you know the period the film is set, but not overstaying its welcome that you’ll get annoyed every time a hip-hop track is played. And this is coming from a person who generally doesn’t prefer hip-hop, or rap music so props to the composers for this one.
There’s a couple of points I’d like to mention before concluding this review. First is the whole debacle with Wheeljack, or as the fandom has nicknamed him, “Pablo.” This is all thanks to the early reveals of his design via toy leaks, and how his design is worlds apart from how he appeared in Bumblebee. The thing is, the live action movies have been doing this since they began, where outside of Optimus Prime, Megatron, Bumblebee, or even Starscream, the other Transformers character sharing the same names as their G1 counterparts may not exactly share the same design. And that’s okay as long as the Transformer has good characterization. And in Wheeljack’s case, he didn’t even have a significant part in the movie.
And lastly, the whole G.I. Joe thing. I know Hasbro has been trying to get a successful G.I. Joe live-action movie franchise up and running, and their last attempts aren’t turning out exactly what they’re hoping. So, establishing G.I. Joe as an actual government organization within this universe makes sense, provides a good entry point, and allows for much larger crossover possibilities. Story-wise, it’s also better than creating another new government organization like Sector 7 in the previous films and provides a logical explanation to the advanced technology will likely see from them. There’s a good chance that the government organization will really be with the good guys instead of how they’re portrayed in the Michael Bay films.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts may not be the perfect movie, but it’s definitely up there, slightly below Bumblebee, as one of the better films the franchise has produced. No cringe-worthy scenes or dialogue, Transformers that are actual characters, visually coherent action, and of course, a film I enjoyed watching. If they continue on the path they seem to be heading to, then the fans should look forward to finally getting the movie franchise they deserve since the first Transformers film in 2007.
