Movie Review - (TF6) Transformers Bumblebee

[GoktimusPrime]

Okay, now I'd like to focus on what I liked about Bumblebee. I'm not going to list every moment that I enjoyed or we'd be here forever. Instead I'm going to focus on what I think is the general crux of what I think makes Bumblebee such an enjoyable movie.

Basically Travis Knight has done the opposite of what Michael Bay has done.
Bayformers = the story and its characters serves the action and effects
Knightformers = the action and effects serve the story and its characters
This shift in focus alone makes a world of difference. We finally have a Transformers film that elicits the audience to become emotionally invested in these characters. We end up actually caring about what happens to them.

Connectedness and the search for identity



One thing I'd like to focus on in this post is the relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee and how it's completely different from Bumblebee's relationship with Sam Witwicky or Cade Yeager. One important difference: there is no MacGuffin. There's no extrinsic motivator that compels Bumblebee and Charlie to be with each other. In the 2007 movie Bumblebee was drawn to Sam because of the glasses. He wasn't necessarily looking to befriend Sam, he needed to obtain the glasses in order to find the MacGuffin. Bumblebee ended up befriending Sam was an incidental by-product of his mission. In Age of Extinction, Bumblebee only allied himself with Cade Yeager because he had already found Optimus Prime and rebuilt him. And this was done because Cade the inventor wanted to become rich by making more inventions because he's an inventor. He was motivated by self-interest, and Optimus Prime and the other Autobots similarly allied themselves with Cade out of self-preservation. In other words, each of these relationships had extrinsic motivations; there were compelling needs for them to be with each other.

When Charlie and Bumblebee first meet, there is no compelling need. Charlie didn't possess any MacGuffin that he was seeking. Bumblebee wasn't being hunted at the time. He could've just driven off and left Charlie alone - there was no reason to stay. And Charlie could've told her mum and called the authorities, there was no reason for her to protect Bumblebee. She wasn't going to "patent the crap" out of Bumblebee. But Charlie and Bumblebee ended up bonding and staying with each other because they wanted to, not because they had to. Their relationship is stronger and deeper because it was more of a conscious choice rather than something that happened out of absolute necessity.

Both Charlie and Bumblebee fulfilled a higher level of need; their emotional needs. A sense of security, belonging and love. Bumblebee was obviously suffering from memory loss and he had lost his voice. He was frightened and utterly alone. Charlie was still traumatised by the loss of her father; something that even her own family were unable to really help her with because they had emotionally moved on but she hadn't.



Charlie's relationship with her father provides the basis for her bonding with Bumblebee, and in turn this helps Charlie to come to terms with the loss of her father as everything comes full circle. We know that Charlie's dad shared his passion for automotive mechanics with her, and that they were building a car together before he passed away. He was her mentor, teacher and friend - passing on everything he knew through the love that they had. So when he passed away Charlie felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest. She felt empty inside. But seeing the derelict Beetle made her want to restore it; for this was not only an important part of her personal identity, but a way for her to maintain her father's legacy as she had hit a wall with the other car. Perhaps she could succeed with the Beetle where she had failed with the Corvette. She was determined to bring Bumblebee back to life. And indeed she ends up triggering his reactivation. And of course her father was also an avid supporter of her diving, a skill which she would use to rescue Bumblebee. So again, another legacy of her father leading to Charlie's connection with Bumblebee. There's a very emotionally powerful moment towards the end of the film where we see a Polaroid of Charlie with Bumblebee next to a Polaroid of Charlie and her late father; showing us that everything has come full circle. Charlie and Bumblebee connect at a far deeper emotional level than we've ever seen before in Transformers.

Everyone is useful



Aside from background extras, there are very few if any wasted characters. Everyone serves a purpose. You remember what all of the main and supporting characters do because they actually do stuff that contributes to the plot. Even Charlie's family prove useful! And when a character's usefulness came to a draw, that character was set aside rather than just tagging along being a nuisance -- e.g. Memo didn't have a role to play in the final battle, so we see him volunteering to stay behind to buy Charlie and Bumblebee time (and his plan hilariously fails as S7 vehicles just drive around him ). But this is so different from Bayformers where secondary human characters just tag along and don't do much other than screaming.

All the cringe-worthy Bayisms are gone

As others and I have already pointed out, a lot of the stuff that we have come to dislike about Bayformers and embarrassed us as TF fans are now gone in Bumblebee. Nobody gets peed on. Nobody gets humped. Nobody gets objectified. There is no enemy scrotum. No tasered scrotum. No Romeo & Juliet. No farting of parachutes. No close up of anyone's behinds. Very little coarse language; as in the S-word is only used twice. And you notice it more because it's used rarely. It makes Bumblebee far more family friendly and accessible to children.

It's given us something new (for Transformers)

We all know that Bayformers had become super formulaic. Nostalgia Critic's Non-Review of The Last Knight brilliantly pointed out just how ridiculously formulaic and predictable Transformers had become under Michael Bay as each movie just lathers, rinses and repeats the same plot over and over again ad nauseum. As I mentioned before, it's not a completely original plot being obviously inspired by E.T., but there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. It's not a remake of E.T.; as I said, it's inspired by E.T. There are plenty of things that happen in Bumblebee that never happened in E.T. such as the backdrop of an intergalactic civil war. It's still giving us a much needed big breath of fresh air from the stifling repetition of Bayformers. Watching a Transformers film no longer needs to be a guilty pleasure. Because with previous films you'd often say, "Yeah, The Last Knight was stupid, but I liked it anyway." Here you can proudly say that you enjoyed Bumblebee without the accompanying sense of embarrassment.

There are many more qualities in this film, but these are the main ones that stick out to me.

[Lord_Zed]

I saw it tonight, at an early screening in one of the more out of the way cinemas, so just like last week (when I saw into the Spiderverse, which was great by the way) it was a crowd free cinema.

So my initial thoughts on the movie are that it was pretty good, by no means perfect but still an above average, enjoyable film. For me there is no maybe's about it though, this is the best live action Transformer film to date by a country mile. In fact the end when Bumblebee transformed into a Camaro made me feel a bit sad that this film had to tie in with the crappy other films (somewhat), In fact I refuse to call this Transformers 6 at all.

Other reviewers on the thread have already mentioned some of the films pros, but a few dot points I want to mention that make this film stand head and shoulder over the previous films.

Likable characters and a small cast, my god how much does having likable characters make a film so much better, and unlike previous Transformers films and most blockbusters they kept the cast small, allowing them to concentrate and develop Bumblebee and Charlie's friendship.

The whole movie was smaller and contained, while it was a thrill to see the Cybertron shots, I like that this story was pretty much all Bumblebee and Charlie, and while the stakes were high (Deception Invasion and all) it was the emotional bond between Bumblebee and Charlie and their characterization that made the action rewarding rather than the usual earth destroying mega threat.

The Easter eggs were used well, and weren't always in your face, no doubt many fans will recount glimpsing various cameos among their favourite Easter eggs, but for me it's the was the use of the final scene of the Breakfast club that Griffin mentioned early. I think there is little doubt that the films creators knew that Judd Nelson was the original voice of Hot Rod, but this reference goes beyond that, not only was it a great nod to the 80's and released the same year that Transformers debuted, but the character arc of John Bender and the other kids in the Breakfast Club is basically akin to Charlie and Bumblebee in this film, both are essentially lost but find themselves by the end of the film, hence why I think the Breakfast Club reference showed up twice.

Most of all though the thing that really stood out to me though was the vibe of the whole film, in that it was positive and feel good, and not self important and mean spirited like the Bay directed films, this film actually was about friendship and ended on that note, the Bay films all end with a strange militant machismo of Optimums usually surrounded by soldiers, making some dour my name I Optimus Prime and we will fight on speech that somehow seems disingenuous, this film I actually walked out of feeling upbeat.


As for some of the cons of the movie, well yeah it is a bit silly that the Transformers all speak English of the bat, and sector 7 make some stupid decisions, but this that's kind of keeping with the source material, and it felt different from when the Bay directed films were stupid, because they take themselves too serious somehow, where as Bumblebee gave of a different vibe being genuinely concerned with the characters over those plot points.

Aside from that my only other gripe is that the plot not over original and predictable, but then many in the action blockbuster genre so I want hold that against it too much.

So overall a good film by general film standards, and a great film by modern toy to films standards IMHO, it easily trashes the other live action Transformer films, GI Joe films and recent Turtle films. In fact this film makes me feel even worse about those previous films because it proves you can make a good modern film from the concept.

• Some moments felt needlessly repeated
  e.g.
  * Bumblebee violently ejecting cassettes playing songs he doesn't like - this happened twice, once for The Smiths and once again for Rick Astley. Once would've been fine (I would've just gone with Astley).
  Sometimes less is more and I felt that these moments kinda lost a big of oomph when they were repeated.

Gotta disagree with you there, Bumblebee ejecting The Smiths was relevant to the story line when he plays the song again near the films end to communicate and warms up to it which further serves to underscore how his friendship with Charlie has deepened, cutting this scene and leaving the reference to the cut scene is the kind of bad directing Bay would do. If they had cut that scene the Astley ejection should have been the one to go as that was more of a wink at the internet meme.

Wow! I can't believe I'm having this kind of debate about a TF movie will wonders never cease.

[GoktimusPrime]

Gotta disagree with you there, Bumblebee ejecting The Smiths was relevant to the story line when he plays the song again near the films end to communicate and warms up to it which further serves to underscore how his friendship with Charlie has deepened, cutting this scene and leaving the reference to the cut scene is the kind of bad directing Bay would do. If they had cut that scene the Astley ejection should have been the one to go as that was more of a wink at the internet meme.

Fair point.

Wow! I can't believe I'm having this kind of debate about a TF movie will wonders never cease.

I know, right! We're actually able to analyse the story because there is a story

[Paulbot]

I've given it a few days, thought about the film a bit since I saw it on Friday and I think it was... okay.

This definitely still felt part of the Michael Bay Transformers universe. The only movie it actively contradicts is the last one, and what one joke line in the first film? And that last one's retcons make no sense - maybe Anthony Hopkin's character was a very unreliable narrator. It could all be squeezed together anyway without much effort IMHO.

There were elements of Michael Bay's humour too. Charlie's parents aren't too far removed from Sam's. The arguing couple in the desert felt like something from a Bay movie. The bit were someone was hanging upside down and calling out in pain while a bully kept shooting him with paintballs? He was supposed to be the lovable instructor? (Really Griffin?) The weirdness of the two teenager male characters both taking their shirts off and the whole party by the lake scene. Bumblebee's still killing every Decepticon he can as brutally as he can. Yes this is another in the line of those Transformers films.

Some of the inconsistencies within the movie bothered me. B-127 has an alien sounding name but the other named characters don't? Although I liked them, particularly Shatter, did either her or Dropkick actually give their names at any point? I was listening out to hear the name Blitzwing but seriously that could have been any "insert Decepticon name" (Ramjet would have been more suitable I think). The design looked cool though and I'd like an SS toy of it. I swear Shatter and Dropkick got extra kibble on their robot forms after scanning their aerial modes which was a nice touch. My Studio Series Dropkick toy doesn't feel at all like the character in the movie though.

I disagree with some of the other nitpics. Griffin I think african-american 18 year olds can have stubble but I'm not an expert. Why didn't they discover Megatron or the Cube? Why would they even think to look in the archives when they were just after B-127? Seat belt laws? A google says that California had laws but older cars that didn't have seat belts built it were excluded (I think for a while that was the same here, my dad's car had no backseat seatbelts in the early 80s). Otis's Gi is worn wrong? Makes sense since he is literally a try hard Karate Kid with his whole touch of death nonsense, of course he'd wear it wrong.

All that said, there were some cute moments, it was more competent film than many of the others so it's got that going for it. Some of the easter eggs were a bit on the nose. I did however say the F word out loud a few minutes in (after the cascade of G1 cameos) in surprise and amazement at what I'd just seen. But after the prologue, and maybe the Blitzwing fight, it was all a bit downhill for me.

I do wonder why might have been changed for the M to PG rating. I had thought it might have been the nature of Dropkick's gun killing humans (but US reviews mention the same effect). Only other guess is maybe some guns pointed at the humans might have been reduced/lowered. I assume it's violence towards humans that would matter since we saw multiple TFs totally disassembled.

[Tha_Phantom]

B-127 has an alien sounding name but the other named characters don't?

Yeah, I agree that it is weird only Bee has an alien sounding name and the rest are Optimus, Cliffjumper, etc. Not a huge deal though.

I swear Shatter and Dropkick got extra kibble on their robot forms after scanning their aerial modes which was a nice touch.

They did. I noticed it too.

Seat belt laws? A google says that California had laws but older cars that didn't have seat belts built it were excluded (I think for a while that was the same here, my dad's car had no backseat seatbelts in the early 80s).

Gok and I discussed this in person, California laws are different to Australian laws. You really should drop this point Gok, it is an American movie first and foremost, you can't expect everything to line up with our laws then or now. Even if it is historically inaccurate it affects the film in no way whatsoever really.

[GoktimusPrime]

Gok and I discussed this in person, California laws are different to Australian laws. You really should drop this point Gok, it is an American movie first and foremost, you can't expect everything to line up with our laws then or now. Even if it is historically inaccurate it affects the film in no way whatsoever really.

It was something we speculated in our face-to-face conversation post movie, but it was confirmed later when we spoke privately online (and was able to do a Google search) - and that was after I'd written up my initial review. It still struck me as odd when during my viewing in the cinema though, as obviously I'm not going to be using my phone to Google things during a movie. Unlike the guy sitting to my left who was intermittently checking his phone during the film I even raised both my hands to block the backlight as a non-verbal hint for him to put it away, but he didn't get the clue.

[DaptoDog]

Took my son to watch it this avo. It was really special to be able to watch this movie together given the PG rating, it's how it should be. We were both in awe of the Cybertron scenes.

As much as I enjoy the original live action Transformers, this movie feels like it should have been the first entry in the franchise all along. There was so much more characterisation. Hailee Steinfeld had a fantastic performance, she was easily the best human character the series has had.

Hope they do more like this but with some more action and more bot characters next time.

[GoktimusPrime]

Hope they do more like this but with some more action and more bot characters next time.

Bear in mind that this movie was made with half the budget of a typical Bayformers film.

I felt it had some good action, but importantly, the action was driven by the story and not vice versa. The focus on a single Cybertronian protagonist was what allowed this story to thrive. Placing greater focus on an ensemble cast always means that you're not able to develop any single character as much. This is why Christopher Nolan refused to do crossovers between his Batman and any other DC hero; he was never on board for a shared cinematic universe or leading towards a Justice League movie. And even the MCU has attempted (not always successfully) to balance itself between movies that focus on single or few characters (e.g. Captain America Winter Soldier, Thro Ragnarok etc.) vs those focused on an ensemble cast (e.g. Captain America Civil War, Avengers etc.). But for the most part, the single-title movies tend to dance well with the ensemble cast films; this is why movies like the Avengers Trilogy (soon to be Quadrilogy) doesn't need to spend much time giving exposition to individual characters. It just assumes that you know these characters from the previous films and gets on with the story.

It'd be interesting to see if Paramount tries something similar with Transformers. Having stand alone movies to highlight individual 'bots and flesh them out as characters, then lump them together in an ensemble cast film. We have a stand alone Bumblebee movie. Then you have a stand-alone Optimus Prime one, maybe one on Jazz or Ratchet or whatever... then boom, lump them together in a collected Transformers movie. One thing I like about this formula is that because it takes time for the audience to know these characters before we seem them all together, it means that the characters have earned their screen presence. They have already worked to pre-establish an emotional connection with the audience. The movie no longer demands that the audience suddenly cares about half a dozen robots that they haven't gotten to know before on screen. This is why nobody cared about anyone on Justice League. Also because some of the screen presence that was previously earnt was un-earnt in JL... Batman who earned our respect as a grizzly older Batman suddenly became goofy and jokey. Wonder Woman who was a mentally powerful and strong character in her stand alone movie suddenly becomes emotionally fragile and unable to move past a tragedy that happened a century ago? Umm... what?

The Transformers live action movie franchise is a year older than the MCU, yet look at how much more the MCU has achieved compared to Transformers. Sure, they've made some mistakes along the way, but on the whole the MCU has gone for strength to strength whereas Transformers has become a cinematic joke.

Something else that Bumblebee did well in was to give us a relatable antagonist, and that was in the character of Jack Burns (John Cena). He's not a villain, but he is an antagonist. Sure, he's hammy (deliberately so), but importantly the audience is made to understand and empathise with why he feels such animosity against Cybertronians and why he wanted to hunt down B-127. Yeah, it was all a misunderstanding, but seeing from Jack's POV you can understand why he feels that way. And that's what can make antagonists more interesting - when we can actually empathise with them. Black Panther's Killmonger and Thanos are other examples of the relatable antagonist. Especially Killmonger given that in the end, he was right! And the hero of the story actually implemented many of his ideas (or ideas inspired by Killmonger) at the end of the film (e.g. opening Wakanda to the rest of the world, offering practical foreign aid etc.). No, Jack Burns is no where near on the same level as those guys, but the point is that he is still ultimately a relatable villain. Contrast this with Steppenwolf from Justice League... gah. Why do I give a crap about his quest for the Mother Boxes again?

The relatable antagonist becomes more than just a complication for the protagonist to resolve or overcome... they become a person in their own right. We aren't made to agree with Thanos' plans, but we are made to see where he's coming from. We don't agree with his methods, but we agree with his core concerns.

[Silverbolt]

I look for movies that can help me escape from reality for a while, are engaging and draw me in. Working in live entertainment, If i get drawn into a piece that allows me to turn off the analytical part of my brain and yet stay engaged. That usually means ita a good movie in my books. Especially if I'm still thinking about it the next day.

I believe i echo most sentiment here when i say wow, there was actually a story.
I remember the first movie was always pitched as being about a boy and his car, yet there was very little relationship built. It seems the real story about a boys and his car is actually the story about a girl and her car.

I like the fact that the movie didn't get distracted by itself. Scenes took the time they need to. It was like the directed got distracted midway a decided bugger it let only film the climactic bit and forget the lead in and out scenes. It flowed so much better and i found my self engaged and not sitting there wondering when the section would finish so we could have some story.

I really like that the bots alt modes were used in combat. Not just as a fly by or drive by, but their flighting style took advantage of their benefit that they can change mid fight for better position, manoeuvrability or firepower depending on what was needed.

When ever Bee was in a tight spot i kept thinking another bot will come in and save him in the nick of time. but as the scenario intensified i had to remind myself, he's on his own. Bee didn't alway win, although he survived which was great in that it keep me wondering how a fight would end.

Ultimately Charlie found emotional healing with Bumblebee to help get over the grief of her father dying, and Bumblebee needed Charlie to survive while waiting for his memory to reboot.
It sure beats having a character involved simply because they had a pair of glasses.

I can understand why Blitzwing was Blitzwing and not Starscream despite baring a resemblance to Starscream. It was for continuity with in the bayverse.
while on the opening chapter of the movie, It was good to see John Cena character actually had an emotional motivation for hating the transformers considering they wiped out his squad (collateral damage)

Seeing Optimus in 'that' truck mode at the end is a sweet touch and something I've wanted to see for a very long time.

If they keep going with with this mood for future moves. It may eventually bring some prestige back to the transformers live action movies. Because this movie proved you can treat the bots as characters, not just special effects.

[griffin]

Soooo... do people think it is really Optimus driving across the Golden Gate bridge at the end, or am I the only thinking it was just a visual easter egg for the fans... as Bumblebee just drove past him, and Optimus didn't appear to be on Earth until after that scene.

Actually... I think it would have been better to see the VW Bumblebee driving past that sort of truck just before he changed to a Camaro, to really be a really nice nod to Gen1.