I am actually one of big fans of Transformers series (and not ashamed of it). My wife and I really enjoyed the first movie and were really amazed and in awe when we saw those cartoon characters came into life for the first time. Back then I never thought they could pulled it off but they did (thanks to Michael Bay). But later the movies did decrease a bit in quality though I still enjoyed them, that is until I saw the fifth installment which kind of disappointed me. So when they said they wanted to make a prequel with the beloved Bumblebee as main lead, I was really excited. We immediately bought the ticket for its premiere date and last night we got the chance to see it in the theater nearest our home.
Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1987, Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld - Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse, The Edge of Seventeen etc) was a teenager who had withdrawn herself a bit from her family and really wanted to have her own car. With some luck she came across with a yellow very old Volkswagen Beetle and managed to get it started. Little did she know that it was actually an Autobot called B-127 (voiced by Dylan O'Brien - The Maze Runner trilogy, American Assassin etc) that had transformed himself into the car, to avoid capturing by Decepticons.
When the car transformed into the robot, Charlie and Bumblebee (the name Charlie came up with) formed kind of a unique and nice friendship. But things were not always good for these two when Decepticons arrived on earth to chase after B-127. And it was further complicated by the military led by Agent Burns (John Cena - 12 Rounds, Daddy's Home 2 etc) who wanted to capture Bumblebee as well. With the help from Charlie's neighbor Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), the three of them had to avoid the capture from both the military and Decepticons.
So how would the story concluded? Find them all in this very fun family friendly Transformers movie.
End of Brief Story Line
This was a movie that I liked a lot. I loved the story that was set in the 1980s filled with pop culture references which I really loved till now and the movie was able to capture all those very nicely. From the so many 80s songs that were still nice to hear and the vintage things like analog radio, cassete player, Betamax player and Walkman. Even the hairdo & costumes were also put up nicely to make us convince of the period. It all brought us delight feel and nostalgic sense (for me especially due to the songs from Duran Duran, A-Ha, Tears for Fears and many more).
I also loved the friendship formed between Charlie and Bumblebee, especially since both seemed to be an outcast. Charlie was having difficult relationship with her family (and friends) while Bumblebee was having his own problem due to the things that happened when he first arrived on earth. Strangely though, I felt there was a sense of similarity between these two with the movie Herbie Fully Loaded where a friendship was also formed between an "alive" Volkswagen Beetle named Herbie with his owner/friend Maggie (starred Lindsay Lohan). However this movie was better since Bumblebee was a lot cuter, funny, innocent and because he can transform himself into a kick-ass fighting robot.
Apart from those factors, I also loved the simplicity of the story with not too many robots showing up (which was kind of the problem of the last Transformers movies which had many sadly uninteresting robot characters). We would only got to see glimpses of my most favorite Optimus Prime (still voiced by the ever commanding voice of Peter Cullen). However we do have some really bad Decepticons like Shatter (voiced by Angela Bassett - Mission: Impossible - Fallout etc) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux - The Spy Who Dumped Me etc) who were a lot bigger than Bumblebee.
As opposed to showing lots of robots, we got to see the other supporting characters who manage to leave us good impressions, especially Charlie's family: Pamela Adlon (Better Things TV series) as the mother, Jason Drucker as Charlie's younger brother Otis and the nice stepfather played by Stephen Schneider. I also like the character of Memo and his relationship with Charlie and Bumblebee which was pleasant to see. They all were a nice addition to the cast and really made the movie even more family friendly. Yes this movie indeed felt more like a family friendly kind, rather than the full action type like all previous 5 movies. It also had quite a number of touching scenes, especially towards the ending that quite affected my wife.
The special effects as usual were always awesome. The music were nice, but I did feel that my experience would have been even better had it been in a theater with Dolby Atmos sound system and a bigger theater. Duration of the movie was less than 2 hours which included the end credit scene. It had some mid scene but no post scene at all. Btw, this movie was directed by Travis Knight who previously directed Kubo and the Two Strings which was critically acclaimed (unfortunately I have not got the chance to see). And just as I thought, Bumblebee is also a movie that won critics' heart and had the highest rating among all Transformers series.
Overall, I personally felt this movie was awesome. It was a really fresh look of the way the Transformers movies had been made. It was a real family friendly kind, brought a lot of nostalgic feeling and had a quite heart warming story of friendship. However, this movie may not really satisfy fans who wanted to see so many fights between robots because of the way the story was told and the few robots appearing. But it did have quite a grand finale fight scene. So if you are not fans of Transformers previous movies, this one surely would capture your heart.
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
PS: I purposely put two posters in this post because, Don't you just love them???
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