Xtreme Vogue London Desk: Judith Benjamin
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Movie Review Rating:
Star Cast: Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Luna Lauren Velez, Dean Scott Vazquez, Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Liza Koshy, Pete Davidson, Colman Domingo
Director: Steven Caple Jr
What’s Good: The stunts are still varied enough to keep you hooked at the moment, but unfortunately, this is way longer than those countable moments
What’s Bad: The makers are still in the ‘fan-service’ zone without knowing the fans have moved to watch better things in life
Loo Break: It’s one ‘toilet’ of a film, your wish!
Watch or Not?: If you’re still into metal-p*rn, go ahead!
Language: Text
Available On: Theatrical Release
Runtime: 128 Minutes
User Rating:
Following the template of every superhero film ever, this starts with bad guys Unicron & team trying to destroy planets which leads to the good guys Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman) and team galloping with a ‘trans-warp’ key. It took a writing team of 5 people to come up with that ridiculous name for a key that helps the universes to be bound together. That’s precisely the same case with the narrative of the film. Cut to hundreds of years later, in 1994; we’ve Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) in Brooklyn on earth, an ex-army soldier trying to look out for his ill brother failing to get any job owing to his uncooperative behaviour as a soldier.
The ‘trans-warp’ key is on Earth, which triggers Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) to call for an emergency meeting of the Autobots. Mirage (Pete Davidson) brings Noah together with him, who was trying to steal the luxury car, but it is now stuck with the Autobots as they ask to help them steal the ‘trans-warp’ key from a museum because that’s the only way they can go back home. Is Noah capable enough to carry out such an important task? This forms the basic crux of the film.
Script Analysis
Bumblebee categorically proved for the makers why it’s the story & screenplay that matters, apart from the heavy VFX-metal-p*rn, which has been the USP of this franchise. Michael Bay did this for five movies & pretty much exhausted the ways of “how to sell this without a story?” Five minds Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber came together to pen the screenplay, which is confused between what to serve fans and what is actually good.
Story writer Joby Harold ‘gets inspired’ by iconic movie characters like Kong, Dinosaurs, and Dragons & slaps a layer of metal on them to call it ‘creativity’ of introducing ‘new’ creators. There’s also a Rhino-bot, and I was just wondering how much more to watch before cat & dog bots. The routine “Our planet is in danger from these otherworldly power, and we have a group of good otherworldly power to save us” storyline never excites you enough.
Star Performance
Anthony Ramos’ Noah is one of the most boring leads you’ll ever see in these big-budget bonanzas. Thanks to the existing fan-following of Giant Franking Metal Robots Prime & Bumblebee, Anthony dodges to attract much attention towards him.
Though Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime & the voiceless Bumblebee are the primary characters, makers really pushed hard for Pete Davidson’s Mirage to be the frontman this time around. Mirage had all the fun while Prime & Bumblebee tried to charm in with their old tricks.
Direction, Music
Steven Caple Jr clearly showcases his lack of experience in carrying a film with such gargantuan expectations. Michael Bay’s exit has been proved awful with Bumblebee as an expectation. This one, too, won’t be a film fans would recall when they would talk about the film franchise that transformed cars into robots for fun.
Jongnic Bontemps produces the background score, but why? Relying on the 90s comes across as a farce attempt to look cool. Wu-Tang Clan’s C.R.E.A.M, Notorious B.I.G’s Hypnotize, and Digable Planets’ Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat) are a few of the songs that are wasted.
The Last Word
All said and done, the rise of the beasts ensures the decline of the bots because the world has evolved to enjoy cars turning to robots for fun without any solid storyline to back it with.
Two stars!
