There are certain words you just don't expect to hear together in the same sentence, or at least if you did it would strike fear into the core of your very soul; 'Rolf Harris' and 'playground' for example or 'barbed wire' and 'urethra' . On the other hand of course, there are words and phrases that have become almost synonymous; 'Eli Roth' and 'hack' or more lately 'Star Wars' and 'crushing disappointment'. Strangely this week I watched a movie that managed to produce one of the former and dispel one of the latter. It seems after years of pounding us in the face with unfathomable plots, unrecognizable characters and an unrelenting disregard for the origins of the franchise, we finally have a Transformers movie that not only breaks the streak of soulless cash-grabbing gibberish, it also manages genuine emotional gravitas in a movie that is ostensibly about 10 foot tall robots stoving each other's painstakingly rendered but indistinguishable CG faces in. In short, Bumblebee is the movie Michael Bay should have made in the first place, but couldn't because of his insufferable ineptitude at shooting anything other than meticulously polished cars at dusk.
I'll not mince words; the first 20 minutes of Bumblebee are better than the entirety of the preceding five movies put together. This is the work of genuine, true fans of the original source material; updated yes, but still instantly recognisable to anyone who had eyeballs and a TV growing up in the 80s. It's a shame that there isn't more to feast on, but that in itself is a genius move. Bay's explosion-fests were lumbering, over-bloated beasts, full of so many different characters that they had no hope of fleshing them out in any real sense and all we were left with was a series of largely interchangeable robot shapes occasionally clunking into one another whilst the human embodiment of the word annoyance flapped around their feet with his greasy crush/girlfriend in the vain hope of finding a series of macguffins which would eventually do A Thing that would either save the world or doom it to an eternity of exploding vehicles destroyed at sundown so the light pops on their bonnets in such a way the it probably made Bay tumescent for days. Bumblebee keeps it a much less cluttered, more subtle affair; there are only two main Deceptions and only your favourite black and yellow, mute autobot featured for the best part of the movie, aside from the cameos from a few favourites. This gives everyone a chance to breathe and develop a little. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it's so much better by comparison that it make you wonder what the catalyst was to switch from Bay to Travis Knight (who also oversaw the frankly beautiful Kubo and the Two Strings).
This is an origin story and somewhat of a reboot, so they've taken the opportunity to tweak some of the designs, in some cases dramatically. Gone are the anonymous collections of random assorted gears and pistons roughly shaped liked your childhood memories and in their place come much improved designs that come as a sort of hybrid between G1 and the Bay-verse. Brief flashes gave us teases of Wheeljack, Ratchet, Arcee, Ironhide, Cliffjumper and Brawn facing of against Soundwave, Ravage, Shockwave and Starscream but all instantly recognised and ready for bigger roles in the sequels to come. The effect is startling; with so few distractions and sub plots you really get a chance to see Bumblebee evolve as a character. The trick is to not treat them like robots, but to assume they're just big metal people and that's what is very evident here. There is a genuine emotional tie, something the original movies never even came close to which gives certain scenes that elusive "oh no not them" feeling that Game of Thrones has been using as its gimmick since episode one.
There are little nods to the original cartoon throughout; Stan Bush makes his way onto one of the best soundtracks since Guardians of the Galaxy, and by the time all the strings get resolved you've forgotten all of the foreshadowing from earlier, such is its subtlety. Nothing here seems to be reaching for straws. Other than the giant robots, this is a film that maintains it sense of wonder while still managing to stay grounded and not descend into the chaotic pseudo scientific BS of its predecessors. Even the balance between humans and Transformers is much better handled, despite having fully half the total number of robots knocking about. Hailee Steinfeld does an admirable job of being relatable as well as bad ass when she needs to be and without any of those horrible cringe-inducing "I'm a strong female character" lines in the script.
There are always going to be gripes but thankfully Bumblebee manages to avoid too many. The plot is pretty straightforward and doesn't offer a lot in the way of twists or surprises, although honestly I think that might have worked to its advantage. Far bigger a problem is the fact that while he might look the part, I could definitely see John Cena and he can't act for shit. He had some decent lines to deliver, but it just feels like he's trying to follow The Rock's career trajectory without half of the natural wit or charisma. Not often you hear me clamouring for more of Josh Duhamel but actually I think he did pretty well before, even in the most dire of surroundings.
So there it is. I never thought I'd be able to say that we finally had a good Transformers movie, but Bumblebee seriously knocked it out of the park. A decent script with the right amount of restraint and a production team that might actually know what they're doing. Sterling effort.
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