Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Proves That Things Are Better After Michael Bay

When Michael Bay brought the Transformers to live-action life in 2007, it was a good thing. He introduced robots who were more than meets the eye to a new generation, helped reinvigorate Hasbro’s flailing toy line, and gave us all Megan Fox. But Bay is the living embodiment of too muchness; by the fifth installment of the franchise in 2017, the Transformers were all but unwatchable. The Last Knight was a two-and-a-half-hour tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It was followed in 2018 by Bumblebee, a Bay-less soft reboot of the franchise set in 1987, pairing the most popular Transformer with the ineffably charming Hailee Steinfeld. It was a simpler story, focusing on the friendship between a girl and an alien, kind of like E.T. if Elliott was an 18-year-old grease monkey and E.T. was a cool, transforming robot. Bumblebee was a reminder that Transformers shouldn’t just be all pew pew and boom boom but also about stories closer to home.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is set eight years after the events of Bumblebee, preambled by the destruction of the Maximals’ home world by the planet eater, Unicron (Colman Domingo), and sees a handful of survivors to escape to Earth. Considering that The Last Knight’s great reveal was that the Earth was Unicron itself, it’s looking likely that the prequel films aren’t prequels at all but rather a completely new story. Thank you, next, Michael Bay.

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This isn’t to say Rise of the Beast isn’t without bombast. It has plenty, in fact. It returns to high stakes storytelling after Bumblebee’s smaller scale tale but never loses sight of the fact that the Earth is still our planet, and that we need to tell more human stories. In this case, we have Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), a down-on-his-luck former soldier who’s trying to support his single mother and brother Kris (Dean Scott Vasquez), who’s suffering from a sickle cell disease. Ramos’ Noah is charming, much like Steinfeld’s Charlie, and exudes gentle big brother energy and a rough-around-the-edges street smartness about him that makes him far more cheer-worthy than the parade of military macho men that Bay somehow shoehorned into his films.

Photo by Paramount Pictures International.

Noah partners up with Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), a museum intern with expertise in ancient artifacts and symbology, useful skills to have when dealing with alien lifeforms that landed on Earth millions of years ago. Relatable humans tick box checked, Rise of the Beasts also throws in some cool, new robots into the mix. Although Bumblebee won’t be giving up his fan favorite crown anytime soon, the flippant, smart talking Pete Davidson-voiced Mirage gives him a run for his money. Mirage and Bumblebee share a similar vibe and are both scene-stealers, so the film deftly takes Bumblebee off the table to give Mirage a chance to shine (and sell more toys).

A younger, brasher version of the iconic Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is back, butting heads with the leader of the Maximals, Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), who happens to be named after the legendary leader of the Autobots. The Maximals transform into oversized beasts and count among their number a giant falcon named Airazor, voiced by the suddenly everywhere all at once Michelle Yeoh.

This time, the big bad is Unicron’s right hand man named Scourge (Peter Dinklage), who draws his power directly from the all-powerful snacker of worlds. This makes him more than a match for the Autobots and Maximals, who need to work together to defeat him and prevent the Earth from turning into lunch. The threat of apocalypse can get old, especially when every other blockbuster uses it as a plot device, but the Earth as hors d’oeuvre? That’s nice.

Photo by Paramount Pictures International.

Unicron isn’t new. Teased at the end of The Last Knight, assuming you had the fortitude to sit through 115 minutes of absolute garbage, Unicron is sort of like the Transformers’ Thanos (or for comics fans, more accurately, like the planet-eating Galactus), a planet-sized entity that rudely hops across the universe on an intergalactic buffet. Unicron was introduced in 1986, in Transformers: The Movie, voiced by the legendary Orson Welles.

Transformers: The Movie is remembered as the cartoon that traumatized an entire generation of kids by actually killing off characters, even Optimus Prime. Specially Optimus Prime. The cartoons on television had never killed off any of its characters, but Hasbro was determined to sell new toys and decided to kill off its entire existing SKU to make way for new ones to fill the shelves. So it caught the company by surprise when kids walked out of theaters bawling. Transformers: The Movie taught Hasbro a valuable lesson about their eventual billion-dollar IP: audiences love their characters.

The suits over at Hasbro still make the mistake of underestimating its audience now and again, but they’re listening more closely than ever. It’s actually remarkable how much of an impact a franchise based on transforming toys has on popular culture, but it’s a testament to Michael Bay’s genius that yellow cars with black racing stripes are inextricably identified with Bumblebee. He’s come a long way from his Volkswagen roots — the original Bumblebee toy transformed into a VW beetle — thanks in no small part to Bay’s decision to make him into a Camaro. From a goofy car of the people that fits an interminable number of clowns to a badass American muscle car, Bumblebee went from sidekick to second-in-command, eclipsing the popularity of Prime himself.

Photo by Paramount Pictures International.

It’s all Bay. Rise of the Beasts is better without him, with a tighter focus on the story, fewer explosions,  and less objectification of the female form (many apologies to Megan Fox). But the Transformers franchise wouldn’t be where it is now without Bay’s vision. Dubbed by Transformers fans as the Bayverse, the live-action films infused gritty realism and introduced more unorthodox humanoid forms that spawned its own subgenre of Transformers toys. It helps to be reminded that, at the end of the day, it’s all about the toys.

That’s why it’s somewhat surprising that Rise of the Beasts is just as good, if not arguably better, than the solidly crafted Bumblebee. It takes all the good parts of the 2018 hit and multiplies it, resulting in an enjoyable, action-packed yet kid-friendly adventure that sets the stage for much, much bigger things. Sure, it’s crammed with characters meant to sell toys — fan favorite Arcee (Liza Koshy) finally makes a live-action appearance — but it’s a pretty solid story that never entirely goes overboard, even during the climactic final battle. Director Steven Caple, Jr. exercises just enough restraint to make all the action set pieces exhilarating without being tiring. It’s probably the best film in the franchise. Michael Bay, who still sits on as producer, may have built the road, but Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts prove that the Transformers are ready to roll out without him.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is now in cinemas nationwide.