REVIEW | Bumblebee (2018)
Fan favourite, family friendly, and now — franchise forerunner.
Relax everyone, Michael Bay’s taking the backseat on this one.
After stumbling across a junked Volkswagen Beetle — rookie mechanic, Charlie Watson, jumps at the chance of owning her own car like any regular teenager. Unknowingly inheriting a transforming robotic alien that’s on the run from a raging-war between Autobots and Decepticons. With the heat of battle from galaxies away coming to earth, Charlie has to deal with her neighbourhood, national security, and intergalactic affairs to help her new car/companion — Bumblebee.
*Minor spoilers for Bumblebee ahead*
If you ask me — I’d tell you that the Transformers movies have always been more of a season-spanning series, instead of a refined film franchise. Like how TV-series back then always had giant monster terrorising Japan, and Ultraman has to swoop in and defeat them with the same Ultra beam.
Which was (of course) awesome — every. single. time.
And I say series because when you talk about the Transformers film franchise, there are only a few major points that most would anchor to. You think about insane special effects, the hot female lead, a showcase of product placements, and you guessed it — explosive and patented, BAYHEM!
But after several world-ending events, repetitive reincarnations of a big-bad villain (the one and only, Megatron), and infinitely more hours put in than both those numbers combined. We can rejoice because this instalment has less destruction, distraction, and debris — replaced with more digestible moments to display.
Similar to how the Star Wars saga has been sprouting creative branches after George Lucas’ prequel trilogy. Director Travis Knight has introduced an all-new avenue to the Transformers universe after 5 world-breaking movies jet-fueled by Michael Bay.
Reflecting traits of Knight’s directorial debut — Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) — this film infuses the familiar buddy-bonding story with family fun, tasteful banter, and fantastic figurine-fights.
Appropriated for cinema from your childhood imaginations.
Even without thinking about these movies being made to push sales for action-figures, Bumblebee really makes you feel like playing with toys while making transforming sound effects with your mouth. Delivering elaborate, yet coherent action scenes with the 1980’s design from the Transformers animated series.
It’s like the dawning of a new era after revolutionising visual effects for cinema, or pioneering the biggest pop culture phenomenon of our age
— you just know that whatever comes after is going to be exciting.
Despite making a habit of having 8,364,973 moving parts in a movie like previous entries. Bumblebee thankfully reduces the explosions-per-minute, the number of characters (from a parade to a party), and the special-effects clutter on-screen this time around. Leaving room for more substance and personality that’s always defined the original franchise.
It’s somewhat comforting to know that after demonstrating a proficiency for outrageous and overblown popcorn movies — that there’s still potential to explore within the universe of shape-shifting robots. I mean just the idea of having the subsequent Transformers movies be about each Autobot member is exciting to consider.
Where most would have comparisons to Disney’s Lilo & Stitch (2002) or Big Hero Six (2014) — I’d say it’s more towards the comic book standalone movies that build-up to the crossover super-team movies (since Bumblebee is a part of a generation-spanning series). Like having Aquaman come after Justice League (2017) — or if Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy had his own spinoff movie.
As a member of the Autobots established with a strong connection to humans, Bumblebee — as both a character and a movie — presents and entertains you with a range of moments that relate to your inner-child, while also being supercharged with Energon-levels that appeals to grown-ups like a big-budget cartoon under a cinematic lens.
That being said — you may experience a strange relief when you sit through an action movie where things aren’t made out of dynamite, places aren’t soaked in gasoline, and the agenda isn’t an explosive extravaganza that’s enough to simulate the surface of the sun.
After 10-odd years of Autobot artefacts, diabolical Decepticons, and the hyper-saturation of Cybertron (that includes everything within its stratosphere). This film charmingly trading global destruction for teenage shenanigans, cheap comic relief for mid-to-top shelf humour, and face-melting action with Saturday morning fun.
In other words — Bumblebee certainly has more t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶m̶e̶e̶t̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶y̶e̶
than the sum of its predecessors' parts.
