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Here we go again. ‘Rise of the Beasts’ has a touch of sequelitis, but then again, it is 37 degrees out…
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Directors: Steven Caple Jr • Writers: Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber, based on the toys by Hasbro
Starring: Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Tobe Nwigwe, Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Michael Kelly, Coleman Domingo
USA • 2hrs 7mins
Opens Hong Kong June 8 • IIA
Grade: B-
Sometimes when a film is so innocuous, so inoffensive, and so harmlessly time-wasting, there’s little that can be said about it beyond the juvenile “Meh.” There’s something to be said for Michael “Crash Baby” Bay’s singular brand of macho, explosionary filmmaking and inappropriate jokes that at least inspires conversation, no matter which side of the divide you come down on. You love his Bayhem or you shake an angry fist at the heavens for allowing a jive-talking racist Transformer to even exist. At least it gets a reaction.
Designed as a standalone sequel to the surprise 2018 hit Bumblebee, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is so painfully bland it’s impossible to get worked into any kind of lather about it. In his third feature, Steven Caple Jr (The Land, Creed II) goes through the IP motions to be bigger, longer, louder and just MORE than Bumblebee, like that’s going to make for an engaging story. The hit squad of writers taking over for Bumblebee’s Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey, The Flash) counts Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, Jon Hoeber and Joby Harold on the list – with Harold earning credit for Army of the Dead, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, and all six episodes of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I’ll just leave that there for you to mull over on your personal time. The story, such as it is, revolves around a lingering intergalactic contretemps involving Maximals, Terrorcons and Autobots and a bubbling war to protect Earth and the rest of the galaxy from an OG Transformer called Unicron. Why is this movie?
This week in UNESCO damage
No sad teens this time. Just Noah Diaz (In the Heights’ Anthony Ramos, who does not break into song), a former soldier having a hard time getting a job and taking care of his sick little brother in mid-1990s Brooklyn. He’s Latino, so of course there’s just a single mother. Can we cease and desist with the absent brown/Black fathers? He teams up with personality-free archaeologist Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback, Judas and the Black Messiah) and a group of Autobots hiding on Earth who need to get a thingamajigger to 1) get home and 2) stop Unicron from eating us. The Autobots include the ever-present drama queen Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), the returning Bumblebee and Mirage, a Porsche voiced by Pete Davidson. I’m still in the dark vis-à-vis the Davidson appeal. He’s trying too hard here and adds nothing to Transformers lore. Because they hired the tremendous emerging star Fishback, they have to make her important, so she’s the one to figure out another thingamajigger – fine, it’s a transwarp key – is buried in Peru. It’s there they meet the Maximals, animal Transformers, chiefly Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman!) and Airazor (Michelle Yeoh!!). They all team up to stop the Terrorcons, led by Scourge (Peter Dinklage!!!), from getting the thingamajigger. For all its explosions and existential threats, Rise of the Beasts could not have less oomph if it tried.
It’s not a bad film. Some of the franchise’s best CGI is on display, and there are some fun callbacks to the charmingly cheesy 1986 animated film (not finding room for “The Touch” is a crime). But it’s also sloppy and lazy. Why does Elena have to figure out an ancient code if the solution is to blow shit up? Where’s the news report about a New York museum getting blown up. Can we see the space laser or not? When did this become Pacific Rim? How is Noah not face down on the pavement after taking the NYPD on a high speed chase? Harold et al seem to want to address inequalities (Elena also gets shafted at work by her white lady boss) but never fully commit to that thread. Own your status as entertaining action fantasy with an end goal of selling merchandise (which is fine) or go all in on social commentary. In or out, people. You can’t have it both ways.
Perhaps what’s most distressing about Rise of the Beasts is the complete and utter erasure of Kubo and the Two Strings director Travis Knight’s artistry and Hodson’s delicately feminist, girl-centred writing. Bumblebee was a surprise hit precisely because of its more intimate, resonant, relatively small scale storytelling. It was about a grieving teenaged girl and her lonely, isolated Transformer friend who later get chased by some nasty government types. The world-ending mission and high stakes quest to save the known galaxy was scaled down considerably, and that gave the film an emotional backbone – which is what made it the best Transformers movie so far. Again, this isn’t bad, and it’s going to make bank (the 12-year-old beside me at the preview was riveted), it’s just painfully average. For Transformers completists only. — DEK