Transformers: Rise of the Beasts: Should You Roll Out to See It?

It's been about six years since I started this site, and it's pretty funny that I'm reviewing a Transformers movie on its anniversary.  One of the first reviews I wrote was for Transformers: The Last Knight.  It was not good, to say the least, and this is coming from someone who actually likes the Michael Bay movies.  The effects are groundbreaking and the action is spectacular.  Plus, they had Linkin Park playing whenever Optimus made his speeches at the end.  Pure cinema. They're what got me into the franchise in the first place.  The year after Last Knight came out, Bumblebee was released and got a pretty good reception.  I really dug it, but felt it contradicted a lot of what was in the previous movies.  It didn't know whether it was a prequel or a reboot.  Now we have Rise of the Beasts, which is a follow-up to Bumblebee.  After watching the movie, I can confirm that this is definitely a reboot, but is it a good movie?  That's what I'm hear to tell you. 

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is directed by Steven Caple Jr. and stars Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Peter Cullen, Pete Davidson, Peter Dinklage, Ron Perlman, Michelle Yeoh, and Dean Scott Vasquez.  Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and the Autobots must team up with the Maximals in order to stop a threat that can not only destroy Earth, but the entire universe as well.  With all of that out fo the way, let's dive into the review!

I had a blast watching Rise of the Beasts.  Is it perfect? Not at all.  Did I feel like a kid watching it? Damn right I did.  There were a ton of things that I really liked about this movie.  I'll start with the Transformers themselves.  They're great.  Unlike Bumblebee, there's a lot more characters this time around.  Yes, some have more screen time than others, but it's really cool to see them as characters and have some personality.  Optimus Prime is one of my favorite characters in pop culture.  He's just awesome.  Part of what makes him great is his voice.  This wouldn't work without the fantastic Peter Cullen.  Cullen has been the voice of Prime since the 80s cartoon and voiced him in several other series and games.  He just generates such a warmth and cares deeply for the character.  I mean, just listen to this interview.  Sure, other actors have voiced him, but Cullen really completes Prime for me.  In Rise of the Beasts, we see a side of Optimus that we haven't seen too many times before.  He wants to go home and blames himself for the war.  Even more interesting, he doesn't really care for humans all that much and wants to have as little contact with them as possible.  At first, I sort of had a hard time with this, but I got used to it.  Pete Davidson voices Mirage, who sort of takes Bumblebee's place as the friend to the humans this time around.  When I heard that Davidson was cast, I got a little nervous since I was worried he was going to phone it in.  Luckily that's not the case here.  He was one of the highlights of the movie.  My friends and I were cracking up whenever he was joking around.  What was even funnier was that Optimus can't stand him.  When it comes to the Maximals, Ron Perlman did a great job as Optimus Primal (yes that's a thing).  There were some points when I couldn't really tell it was him.  The main villain in this movie is Scourge (Dinklage), who is a servant of Unicron, a planet-eating Transformer.  Dinklage did a really good job making this guy scary.  One thing that really surprised me was how much I liked the lead,  Noah Diaz (Ramos).  Noah is a former soldier who's just trying to find a job to provide for his family.  Ramos really made me feel for this character.  The relationship he has with his brother Kris (Vasquez) came across as really genuine.    Going in, I didn't know what to expect with the humans, but I came out really liking them.  The movie's action was impressive as well.  While I wouldn't say it's the best of the series, it's still really cool.  The big fight at the end is like a kid's dream.  Like all the Transformers movies, Beasts has great effects.  I don't envy the animators' job at all.  All of the characters look real.  There's just so much detail on the robots and you could tell the filmmakers put a lot of care into designing them.   I also dug the music quite a bit as well.  Jongnic Bontemps did a great job with the score.  There's some themes used from the previous movies that are great callbacks.

Even though I really enjoyed this movie, I had a few issues with it.  For a movie called Rise of the Beasts, there aren't exactly a ton of beasts.  There's four and most of the focus is on Primal and Airazor (Yeoh).  The other two, Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa) and Rhinox (David Sobolov), don't have a ton to do.  They're mainly relegated to being background characters until the final fight.  The same can be said for the Autobots.  Much of the movie's focus is on Optimus and Mirage, but Arcee (Liza Koshy), Bumblebee, and Wheeljack (Cristo Fernández) don't do anything.  Wheeljack is the worst one for me because his design is just ugly.  For some reason it was changed since Bumblebee and he's a stereotypical nerd now, complete with big glasses and suspenders.  I also think the movie would benefit from being a bit longer.  There were some parts that kind of flew by and never had the time to breathe.  Alright buckle up, this next part is really nerdy.  The Maximals were originally introduced in the show called Beast Wars: Transformers.  It follows the battle between the Maximals and the Predacons.  They are Transformers from the future that got sucked into a time warp to prehistoric Earth.  I never really watched the whole show, but I think that's the gist of it.  Now, in Rise of the Beasts, time travel is hinted at, but never really explored in depth.  There's a scene when Optimus Primal meets Prime and reveals he was named after him, implying that the formal is from the future.  Stay with me here.  When he sees how Prime is so distrusting of the humans, one of the characters says to Primal something like, "This is the warrior you were named after?"  This is something that's never really delved into.  None of the characters even react to the fact that time travel is possible and it's never really explicitly said.  You just have to be a Transformers nut like me to understand it.  The one thing that really bugged me is something that I can't even get into that much because it's literally the last shot of the movie.  They're setting something up that I really wished they weren't, but I think a lot of fans will be happy.  There are some parts of the movie that can be pretty cheesy, but then again, this is based on a property from the 80s. 

To wrap everything up, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a fun summer movie.  Optimus Prime has a really interesting arc, Mirage is hysterical, the other Transformers were cool, I actually cared for the human characters, the effects and action are awesome, and the music is really good.  The movie could've benefitted from exploring some of the other robots more, being a little longer, and explaining some more things.  I also didn't care for what they were setting up either.  Hopefully this movie does well enough for a few more because I want to see these guys again!  If I were to review it, I'd give Transformers: Rise of the Beasts an 8/10.  Also, be sure to stick around, because there's a mid-credits scene as well.