View Poll Results: Bumblebee Movie - worth watching?

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  • Excellent - must see it

    31 73.81%
  • It was good, but not great

    7 16.67%
  • Average

    2 4.76%
  • Disappointing - avoid it

    2 4.76%
  • I don't intend to see it

    0 0%
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Thread: Movie Review - (TF6) Transformers Bumblebee

  1. #1
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    Default Movie Review - (TF6) Transformers Bumblebee




    "Transformers 6" - Transformers Bumblebee

    Release in Australia - December 20th (advance screenings December 14-16, Preview screenings December 9 & 12)
    Other release dates and details here.



    Running time - 1h 54min

    Human cast (actor - character)
    Hailee Steinfeld - Charlie Watson
    John Cena - Agent Burns
    John Ortiz - Agent Powell
    Christian Hutcherson - Howie (Sector 7 Tech)
    Glynn Turman - General Whalen

    Robot cast (robot - voice actor)
    Bumblebee -
    Dropkick - Justin Theroux
    Shatter - Angela Bassett
    Optimus Prime - Peter Cullen
    Blitzwing - David Sobolov

    Production
    Director - Travis Knight
    Story - Christina Hodson
    Screenplay - Christina Hodson, Kelly Fremon Craig
    Producers - Steven Spielberg, Brian Goldner (Hasbro), Chris Brigham, Mark Vahradian, Michael Bay, Lorenzo di Bonaventura (plus 3 more)


    --------------------------------------


    Post your reviews, thoughts, comments, and vote on the poll (or just give a score out of 5 or 10 in your posting).


    SPOILERS!!!!! (seriously, if you haven't seen it yet and plan to, why are you looking at a review topic about it?)



  2. #2
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    Just got back from this, 2nd best after the first movie, but only just. Full review when I get home.
    If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you

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  3. #3
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    Default SPOILERS!!!

    Okay, just caught an advance screening and I must say, Bumblebee is close to the best movie in the live action universe. I still rank the first live action movie as the best but I guess a lot of that is because it was the first, and I still recall the sense of awe I had seeing transformers make the transition to the big screen. That being said, if it weren't for the nostalgic wonder I had for the first movie, this would definitely be there. What made me like this movie so much is that nothing feels forced - no BS jokes regarding robot balls, no booty shots, no cliched boy gets the girl ending. Everything feels like its been done for a reason, and the story is better for it. The movie definitely has a different feel to it - the first 5 movies had Michael Bay's prints all over them. While Bay is listed as a producer for this one, it doesn't feel like a Bay film - no massive explosions, no long, drawn out action sequences, just enough to advance the storyline. And the heroine is well developed - she's strong, independent and able to stand on her own as a character. John Cena's character is solid as well - he's determined to protect Earth, even if it means destroying Bumblebee, but he does so out of a sense of duty rather than pure hatred. But enough of the human side - lets talk about the robots! There are really only 4 characters in this movie, that being Bee, Shatter, Dropkick and Blitzwing. And some brief cameos from some other G1 stalwarts as well! Optimus, Soundwave, Shockwave and the others seen in the preview appear only in flashback sequences of Cybertron. But its enough to set up the movie and its subsequent sequels. And there are easter eggs galore - the last scene in the movie, the cybertronian flashback scenes, the selection of songs. Oh, the soundtrack? Being an 80s kid, the song selection for the movie ticked every box for me. I'm actually tempted to get a copy of the OST but I already have 3/4s of the tracks. But its certainly a highlight of the movie. I don't know if there's anything more I can say about this film - it hit all the right notes for me. Just a shame there isn't more decent toys for it, I'd love an SS Shatter in both alt forms not to mention Dropkick (car mode) and Blitzwing. Regardless, a fantastic return to form for the TF live action universe.
    If I want your opinion, I'll give it to you

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  4. #4
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    I think if you go and see it, tell yourself it is a first chapter reboot... as there were bits that clashed with Bay's movies, and if you forget everything that happened in the first five, this one makes a lot more sense to watch.
    And I'd be happy to see more episodes of this new time line, even if it uses elements from the first five movies (like sector seven, agent simmons and the Camaro Bumblebee), as this movie has set up a good foundation for more.
    The Easter eggs were nice... hopefully all intentional, like the inclusion of Judd Nelson in the Breakfast Club, who voiced Hotrod in the 1986 movie.
    Worth seeing, more than the last two Movies... as it had a lot more emotion to the story, making you laugh (cleanly this time) and even shed a tear or two.
    A couple of sticking points though - the previews with John Cena being the big bad military guy made it really hard to warm up to him, especially at the beginning when he was being the lovable instructor of his military squad... and the (boy)friend of Charlie seemed really redundant to the plot (he could have been omitted and I don't think he would have been missed), and not sure why he had stubble, since he was supposed to be a school student (I know it school kids can have full beards, but these were supposed to be a couple of kids/teenagers... so should have been made to look like young kids).
    If this movie is supposed to be in the same universe as the first five movies, there are a number of things that don't make sense... especially since the Decepticon duo having access to the Sector Seven archives and were in Hoover Dam... but didn't discover Megatron or the Cube.

  5. #5
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    Although I don't think it's as good as some of the early reviews made it out to be, I genuinely enjoy the movie.

    My thoughts:
    - plot is not its strong suit imho. Although much better than the Bay films a lot of things jut don't make sense to me. How Charlie revived Bumblebee sticks out from memory now.

    - But, it handles individual scenes so much better, and there's actual character development.

    - the bond between Charlie and Bee is a little forced but very heart warming. I can't help but have flashbacks of Spike and G1 Bumblebee.

    - the TFs actually fight like humans would in a real fight, not badly choreographed cheap Kung Fu movie knock offs. And the ability to transform is used wonderfully (as transformers should) for either combat (the fight scene where Bumblebee turns into alt mode and uses the momentum to jump up and transforms back mid-air gave flashback of Jazz in the S1 opening), or utility (half transformed to squeeze through the door? that's quite ingenious)

    - Bee transformed on screen at least 10 times and it looks so realistic and is consistent with where parts go. The cleaner robot aesthetics certainly helps to;

    - The G1 homages and easter eggs for fans are really nice. It's wonderful to see Brawn, Arcee, or Cliffjumper etc. so recognizable, and with the G1 transformation sound effect to boot. I smiled when Bee played "The Touch" from his radio.

    Overall, it's been said many times already but this is probably the Transformers live action movie we'd all wanted from the get go or thought we were gonna get. A very enjoyable movie too, not just for die hard TF fans.

  6. #6
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    Excellent film, and I've posted about the positive things that I think about the movie without mentioning spoilers on the Movie Review thread - so please read my post there to see all the things that I loved about this film. And I do largely love this movie - I would rate it 4½ out of 5 stars

    Before I get into my nitpicks, I'll mention one neutral thing -- I don't think this is either a positive or negative. The plot is essentially the plot of E.T. Kids discover alien who lives in their home but it needs to be hidden from the parents. Main kid character is going through emotional issues which the alien friend helps to resolve. Alien trashes the house. Secret government operatives capture the alien - operatives are antagonists but not villains. Kids have to stage a daring rescue of their alien friend who needs to requires resurrection. Alien phones home and more of his kind come to Earth.
    Obviously there's a lot more to Bumblebee than this - including the backdrop of an intergalactic civil war and having actual villains in the story etc. -- I'm not saying that this story is a retelling of E.T., but the similarities between the two are there.

    This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. Many movies have become successful by drawing inspiration from previous films. Star Wars drew inspiration from Kurosawa Akira films like "The Hidden Fortress," and The Magnificent Seven was inspired by "The Seven Samurai" etc. So I have no problem with Bumblebee being inspired by E.T. This isn't a complaint, just an observation.

    ----------------------------------------------------

    But I'm gonna be nitpicking some minor things here, because this is the thread where I can discuss spoilers. But again, I am disclaiming that these are minor nitpicks and it by no means that I think that I hate the movie. As I said, I rate it 4½ stars, so this rant is about the "missing ½ star.: So yeah, love love love the movie and I can't wait to watch it again, but here are a few minor things that stood out to me.

    • The magical disappearing and reappearing Moped
      When Charlie's mum is driving the dog to the vet, we see Charlie catch up on her Moped and she gets into the car with mum and continues driving. And abandons the Moped. But we later see the Moped reappear! Charlie and Memo ride off the save Bumblebee on the Moped, and we later see Memo arrive at the shipyard on Charlie's Moped. So I guess that nobody stole that Moped for the number of hours it was left abandoned... and the Moped somehow found its way home. Maybe the Moped's a secret Autobot too.


    • How do all of the Transformers know English?
      And I don't mean hearing them speak English off-world -- the audience can assume that the dialogue is translated for our convenience. But I mean the Transformers arriving on Earth and speaking and immediately the humans can understand them. Also, all of the Cybertronian's text (including Bumblebee's HUD) is in English. When S7 started attacking Bumblebee and he started speaking back to them, they didn't seem to understand what he was saying. When he told them to run from Blitzwing, they didn't run. So the audience might assume that they're not speaking the same language. But when Shatter and Dropkick arrive, they can be understood by humans as soon as they speak. And all of the Cybertronians on Earth can understand English. The movie only needed a quick explanation for this -- like maybe one of the S7 people remarking about how they can speak English, and say Shatter can say that they've acquired their language by scanning radio signals. It's similar to how Optimus Prime told Mikaela that they learnt Earth's languages via the World Wide Web. The explanation only takes a few seconds. And yeah, I would've preferred to see the text written in Cybertronian -- you can have the text "transform" into English for the audience's benefit as we had in the 2007 live action film.


    • Cars in 1987 had seat belts
      When the stepdad mentions that they really gotta get seat belts for their car... uh... cars HAD seat belts by the 80s. It was compulsory to wear them. As a kid in the 80s I remember my mum was driving down the motorway and my brother and I weren't wearing our seat belts -- a police officer pulled us over and issued my mum with a fine. So yeah, we definitely had wear our seat belts back then too! Bit of an odd historical inaccuracy there.


    • Otis wears his Karate-Gi incorrectly
      He wears his Gi right over left instead of left over right, which is a social taboo in Japan where it's actually offensive. This is because traditionally the only time a person is dressed with their kimono backwards is... at their own funeral. Yikes! Having said that, I've seen my fair share of people in Australia who wear their Gi backwards - obviously due to cultural ignorance, and this is most likely the case here. It's not necessarily even a flaw with the film - the fact is that a lot of Westerners do wear their Gi incorrectly. I can imagine some Japanese audiences wincing at this though.


    • Some moments felt needlessly repeated
      e.g.
      * Bumblebee transforming to robot mode, towering over Charlie, and then retreating into the corner of the garage cowering. Only to be interrupted by Charlie's mum and Bumblebee's transformed back to vehicle mode, but when mum leaves the exact same thing happens again.
      * 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.


    ...and, uh... uh... that's pretty much it. Seriously. With the Bayformers films I can write mega-long lists of what's wrong with them, many of them being fairly major flaws. But with Bumblebee I can't really think beyond less than a handful of nitpicks, and admittedly pretty minor ones at that. When I review a Bayformer film, I struggle to think of nice things to say about it. Just look at my review of The Last Knight... a lot of the Pros that I mentioned involve me scraping the bottom of the barrel. Seriously... things like "Nobody got peed on or humped!" and the fact that one of the highlights was an obscure quote in a dead language just goes to show how desperate I was to find any forms of praise. I had to think hard to come up with positives but it was too easy to unleash all the negatives. With Bumblebee it's the other way around -- I have to think hard about what negatives I can say about it, but talking about the positives is as easy as... leaking lubricant!

    But yeah, as I disclaimed, this is just me being nitpicky. On the whole Bumblebee really is a fantastic movie. I cannot wait to see it again and I cannot recommend this movie highly enough to everyone, whether you're a fan, hater or just never cared about the other Transformers movie. Everyone can love this film. Unless you're a lover of Bayformers, then yeah, you might hate Bumblebee because it flies in the opposite direction. I have seen at least one very negative review, but these reviewers also rated Revenge of the Fallen very highly. As I said in my spoiler-free review on the Movie thread, if you're a dead-set lover of Bayformers and Bayisms, then there's a chance that you might not enjoy Bumblebee.
    Last edited by GoktimusPrime; 16th December 2018 at 12:35 PM.

  7. #7
    Jellico is offline Rank 6 - Dedicated Member
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    I knew the US was backwards on seatbelts so I thought to check.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seat..._United_States

    Turns out really backwards.

    So cars had to be built with them from 1968. But enforcement only happened in the 80s with 86 for California.

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    Quote Originally Posted by GoktimusPrime View Post
    The magical disappearing and reappearing Moped
    It’s a tribute to Prime’s trailer.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jellico View Post
    Turns out really backwards.

    So cars had to be built with them from 1968. But enforcement only happened in the 80s with 86 for California.
    Holy crap that's backwards! But According to the link the state of California (where Bumblebee is set in) started enforcing seat belts on 1/1/1986, so by 1987 when this film happens it would have been mandatory.
    Quote Originally Posted by djanscak View Post
    It’s a tribute to Prime’s trailer.
    Arise, Charlima Prima!

  10. #10
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    Just saw it and loved it. Most impressively it makes me want to buy a MPM-7

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