Jonah Naplan   June 7, 2023

Metal clanging and banging together, trash-talk, yelling the names of characters in danger, dialogue about the fate of the world as we know it. These integral checklist items make up the backbone of the newest “Transformers” movie, a wildly entertaining and action-packed blockbuster that far exceeds the Michael Bay era, bringing new, well-deserved depth to the franchise’s name. Life has not been kind to the Autobots’ movies, yet it’s a wonder how the tables turn once you remove the man responsible for their demise, and replace him with a possible savior. That new guy is director Steven Caple Jr. (“Creed II”), a much-needed and innovative new voice that matches some substance with all the style, and adds real meaning behind the robot battlefields.

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” may not be as good as the delightful “Bumblebee,” but it lives miles ahead of that dreadful run that spanned ten years from 2007 to 2017. The fan servicey robot carnage is all still here—though done lightyears better—but it’s the thorough development of the human characters that makes this one so much more enrapturing. “Rise of the Beasts” takes place in 1994 in a pre-Giuliani New York City. We’re introduced to Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), a former military electronics expert desperately looking for work to support his family, particularly his younger brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez), who’s suffering from an unclear illness.

At the same time, a young artifacts expert who’s wise and knowledgeable beyond her years, named Elena (Dominique Fishback), is fighting to make her voice heard at an Ellis Island museum. Both characters are young people of color, fighting to make their mark in a predominantly white world—the first idea that makes “Rise of the Beasts” stand out.

Different from what other big blockbusters can boast, the human characters in “Rise of the Beasts” are some of the more intriguing and worthwhile protagonists in many a big, boomy picture. And in a film that also revolves around giant space robots, it helps to have at least one aspect that is grounded in reality, and reasonably so. This seventh “Transformers” movie isn’t exactly a sequel to Travis Knight’s prequel, but it does take place before Michael Bay’s first. “Transformers” connoisseurs will appreciate the return to form for this franchise, and the new additions to the robot lineup. In addition to the Autobots, led by the iconic Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen), this film features an impressive array of Maximals from the “Beast Wars” television show, and a tableau of intergalactic villains known as the Terrorcons, doing the dirty work of the planet-eating Unicron (Colman Domingo).

They’re all after an unimpressive doohickey that can send the Autobots home, or destroy Earth. And Noah and Elena are tossed into the midst of it all—the former when he attempts to steal a Porsche that turns out to be an Autobot named Mirage (Pete Davidson) in his stationary form, and the latter when she begins to study a dusty, bird-like sculpture that arrives in her lab. One of this film’s greatest joys is watching the spiky banter between Noah and Mirage. Ramos provides the perfect blend of curiosity, integrity, and skepticism to the role, while Davidson presents some of the best and funniest work he’s done to date. The rest of the Autobots, though each with varying amounts of screen time, all manage to fare well on their own, too. Bumblebee isn’t in very many scenes, but he does leave a considerable impression, as do Arcee (Liza Koshy) and a 1970s Volkswagen bus named Wheeljack (Cristo Fernández).

The Maximals are made up of tough gorilla Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), the majestic falcon Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), Rhinox (David Sobolov), and Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa), and unfortunately some are given fairly little to do. Unicron’s ferocious right-hand man Scourge (Peter Dinklage) is given plenty to work with, however, and leaves a devastating mark on our leads. So we have our heroes, we have our villains, we have our conflict, we have our stakes, we have our MacGuffin. Let’s fight it all out. 

And fight they do. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is not doing anything to reinvent any genre, idea, perspective, or what have you, but it is an exceptionally entertaining time, and knows it. I don’t like using the term “turn off your brain movies,” because all films require some sort of thought while watching them. “Rise of the Beasts” is incredibly stupid, and requires you to suspend all of your disbelief, yet how you choose to approach and embrace its livelihood is the doing of the viewer, not the film.

But I must stress that my personal enjoyment may differ purely because of my unforgettable theater experience. I caught “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” at an early fan screening in a packed IMAX theater, surrounded by roaring fans. It’s the type of theatrical hype usually only reserved for comic book movies. Yet anytime something exciting happened, I was immersed in a shower of claps, hoots and hollers. The ending—and by ending, I mean quite literally the closing shot—was preceded by a loud cacophony of confused excitement. It’s the odd kind of “what the heck?” moment, that seems heavily studio-oriented, but also somewhat of a bizarre promise to keep these movies going.

I suspect that a big reason why my crowd was so emphatic was because their pleasure is so obviously hidden in the movie’s framework. “Rise of the Beasts” is a highly crowd-pleasing movie, designed for a summer release, for fans and families with children just old enough to not be scared by an obviously unrealistic robot getting their arm ripped off by another unrealistic robot.

The stakes seem automatically lower when it is so often the metal robots getting the worst beating, and because we know this film is a prequel. Not only will Optimus Prime and Bumblebee turn out OK in the end, but they’ll survive for several more movies to come. And spoiler alert: the good guys win. The film’s simple-minded, schlocky, and overall cheese-filled narrative makes it docile, and all the more difficult to penetrate. Yet that anticlimax is the film’s greatest weakness, ripping the film of real tension.

But when Caple Jr. and his five credited writers are in the midst of a chaotic yet wildly fun robot battlefield, they know the viewer will forget to notice. And I have to admit, the CGI in these final battle sequences is surprisingly tactile, and furthermore—pardon my lack of a better word—intimate. Big, heavy chunks of metal endlessly slamming into each other has never felt more fun. And you can actually decipher what’s happening!

In an attempt to lure more viewers back into movie theaters post-pandemic, the last thing we need right now is more pretentious, self-serious cinema. Thankfully, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is one of the most earnest, friendly, and convivial outings of the summer movie season so far.

Now playing in theaters.