TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is the new Transformers picture directed by Steven Caple Jr. (THE LAND, CREED II). It’s not a reboot, but a new chapter set in 1994 – after Travis Knight’s BUMBLEBEE, before all the Michael Bay ones. So technically it’s a prequel, but there’s not much important continuity (as there really isn’t in any of these movies).

Aside from a new director and attitude, the flashy new attraction is the Maximals – robotic animal characters from the 1996 computer animated show Beast Wars. You know how it is, you’re on Cybertron just minding your own business being a mechanical rhino or cheetah made out of metal but with fur on some parts, suddenly you gotta flee to an organic jungle world to hide the portal-opening Transwarp Key from the the giant planet-munching robot Unicron. That character was famously voiced by Orson Welles in THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE, and here he’s Colman Domingo (ZOLA), a great choice of voice to process even lower and blast through Imax speakers so loud you can feel it vibrating your bones.

During the prologue, set thousands of years ago, the Maximals are tracked by Scourge (Peter Dinklage, BULLET), a henchman of Unicron who transforms into a Mad-Maxified version of the truck from DUEL and wears the hood ornaments of his fallen foes on his grill as trophies. But their leader Apelinq (David Sobolov, voice of RoboCop in RoboCop: Alpha Commando) heroically sacrifices himself as a distraction while a group led by gorillabot Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman, POLICE ACADEMY: MISSION TO MOSCOW) escape to hide the Key on some obscure backwater planet called Earth.

Then “C.R.E.A.M.” plays as we jump to 1994 Brooklyn and meet the series’ historic first likable male human character, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos, A STAR IS BORN). His problems are generic but sympathetic: he needs money to support his sick little brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez, 9 BULLETS) and their mom (Luna Lauren Velez, also Miles’ mom in SPIDER-VERSE) but no one will hire him so he reluctantly agrees to help his friend Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) steal a valuable car from rich people at a fundraiser for a museum. The car, of course, turns out to be an Autobot, Mirage (Pete Davidson, BODIES BODIES BODIES), who drives off with Noah inside, decides he wants to be buddies with him and brings him to a secret warehouse meeting with the other Transformers, causing Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour) to pick him up like an action figure and consider crushing him.

Unlike many people my age I don’t have an objection to Davidson, I think he can be pretty funny, but his casting here isn’t great. I can’t be too hard on his riffing because even in its biggest airballs (referencing Marky Mark because, get it, he’s in some of the other movies) it’s never as irritating as almost any “funny” character in any of the Bay movies (Transformers or othwerwise). But the variation on his usual regular dude persona doesn’t really fit with being an alien car-man, and I wish it was someone less recognizable so I could think of it as a character and not a celebrity doing a voiceover.

The other lead human is Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback, JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH), an intern at the museum who finds one half of the Key hidden inside an ancient relic and gets mixed up in all this because she happens to be there when Noah breaks in to steal it for the Autobots. He sounds crazy telling her about the giant robots from space but then they’re attacked by Scourge and his gang the Terrorcons about two minutes later.

The Autobots are contacted by fire-breathing falconborg Airazor (Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh, BABYLON A.D.), who explains the whole deal, Elena figures out from her study of the artifact that the other half of the Key must be hidden in a certain temple in Peru, and everybody heads there together. Optimus wants to reunite the pieces of the Key so the Autobots can use it to return to Cybertron, while Noah plans to destroy it so Unicron doesn’t use it to snack on Earth, a planet he enjoys residing on. Eventually Noah and Optimus will have to get on the same page and work together.

I’ve heard it said this has no connection to BUMBLEBEE, but there’s actually a line alluding to it – Optimus tells Bumblebee he knows he befriended a human once, but he still doesn’t trust them. I think they could’ve gotten away with ignoring Prime’s characterization as a bloodthirsty lunatic in the Bay movies, but they take the prequelizing seriously and have him even worse at this point and learning the lesson that it’s jerky to prioritize the future of his home planet over that of the one he’s been hiding out on. I suppose it helps put Noah over since we, as humans, gotta side with him over Optimus. Also he’s a fellow Wu-Tang fan.

Just as BUMBLEBEE used its 1987 setting as an excuse for all purpose ‘80s nostalgia, RISE OF THE BEASTS represents the ‘90s by giving Kris a Power Rangers t-shirt and (apparently anachronistic) Gameboy Super Mario Bros. obsession. The musical choices are more specific. Noah has Wu-Tang, Nas and POETIC JUSTICE posters in his room, and the soundtrack is made up of the most obvious but also most undeniable ‘90s New York hip hop songs: “C.R.E.A.M.,” “Check the Rime,” “Represent,” “Rebirth of Slick,” “Hypnotize,” “Mama Said Knock You Out.” If I’m not mistaken “Hypnotize” (released in 1997) is the only one that’s a cheat, and that’s on the end credits. Maybe the end credits take place later.

You can’t really say it’s a great soundtrack, because everybody who’s into this type of music has all of these albums. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but be happy to hear them (unfortunate edit right at the peak of “The Choice Is Yours” not withstanding). Maybe this is what boomers felt like when they heard the soundtrack to FORREST GUMP. That said, they’re so consistent throughout that it feels wrong when they set the climax to a modern song. I’m sure the kids are fine with it but let the record reflect that to this old man it was painful.

There’s a pretty long list of ways that, by most normal standards, RISE OF THE BEASTS is better or more tolerable than any of the Bay Transformerses. Its human characters are infinitely more likable and rarely annoying. The corny humor is not wall-to-wall, and for the most part it’s timed competently and not mean-spirited or racially stereotyped like some of Bay’s. It has none of Bay’s objectification of women, so the most sexist thing I noticed was Kris saying “Bros before hoes,” which Noah objects to and which IMDb trivia informs me is a reference to the first film.

It has a different view of the world than Bay’s; there are no weenie bureaucrats who must be humiliated, no soul-crushing ball-and-chain hags to complain about, no girls to get, no daughters whose chastity must be zealously guarded, no worship or fetishism of soldiers and military equipment*. They do use “ex-soldier” to explain some of Noah’s talents, but the reason he was discharged and now gets rejected from security jobs is that he did the right thing and prioritized his brother’s health over his military career.

The detail that Kris’s disease is sickle cell is obviously significant, as is the use of Nubia as the ancient civilization the Transwarp Key is even older than. Otherwise Elena’s underdog story is less culturally specific, unless you count that she’s a hugely overqualified intern with a white boss named “Jillian” (Sarah Stiles, UNSANE) who takes credit for her work.

Like the other ones, the screenplay is credited to a whole bunch of people: story by Joby Harold (KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD, ARMY OF THE DEAD), screenplay by Harold and Darnell Metayer & Josh Peters and Erich & Jon Hoeber (RED, BATTLESHIP, THE MEG). Adapted from the works of Hasbro and the works of Hasbro as adapted by Michael Bay. But they managed to make something much more coherent and straight forward, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s half an hour shorter. Not only did I follow the plot the whole time, so did my two friends who had never seen a TRANSFORMERS movie before! In that sense RISE OF THE BEASTS is a whole different maximal.

But not in the way BUMBLEBEE was. I loved that that first non-Bay Transformers was made with heart and humanity. I preferred those robot designs and the superior character animation, and I’m glad RISE OF THE BEASTS seems to shoot for those things too. But BUMBLEBEE was also a smaller story, at least halfway a coming-of-age teen movie, pretty much a different genre, while this is closer to the Bay template. That means it asks the question “What happens when someone who isn’t a bizarre lunatic tries to make something in the vein of a Michael Bay movie?” Caple is a whole separate human being, so by definition he doesn’t have Bay’s specific obsessions, hangups, or skills. Unlike Bay he’s a big nerd for the Transformers cartoons, but over time Bay gave in to all the weird Cybertronian mythological shit, and he even started making his overly complicated designs work, so it’s not a whole new ball game or anything. Different team, same sport.

And I have to admit there are aspects of Bay’s movies I missed in this. As obnoxious as they are, I appreciate their onslaught of laugh out loud, brazen ridiculousness. BEASTS has some of those moments (like when Mirage wraps his parts around Noah to make him into what I call a “Person-bot”), but not constantly throughout like in the Bay movies. For sure it’s a less stupid movie, it’s less insane, it makes more sense, you’re not constantly wondering what the fuck. A part of me appreciates that. Another part wonders, do we really want a more reasonable version of these movies? Why go into Hell if you’re worried about catching on fire? Just go somewhere else.

I think there’s also an issue with the Maximals premise. I like these animal robots (Optimus Primal is especially cool looking) but, just like the original toys, they abandon the concept of “robots in disguise.” So the robot melodrama continues, and that’s cool, but for most of the movie they’re in in the mountains of Peru, far from people or civilization, so it’s low on that collision between the robots and human environments. Not just the destruction, but the shock and awe, the terror. Admittedly, few directors would be able to compete with Bay in the spectacle department, but maybe it would be interesting to see how that sort of thing plays from a director who doesn’t hate people, and doesn’t change the tone for no reason every two seconds like somebody sat on the remote by accident. Next time, baby.

(That’s a joke about Terrence Howard not returning for IRON MAN 2, but this movie went over well with the crowd I saw it with, especially the kids, so Caple and/or this series might really get another shot.)

The FX this time are done by MPC and Weta instead of ILM (who are more expensive and also busy doing an all-animated TRANSFORMERS prequel). Unlike the people passing around clips on Twitter pretending it’s the worst shit they ever saw, I think they look good and that there’s lots of really well done robot violence. But it’s also true that they lack the sense of awe of the robots in Bay’s movies, and don’t have quite the same tactile realism that comes partly from how cool their surfaces look reflecting Bay’s pretty sunsets. I don’t know why this one has to be so overcast.

Another very simple thing: we don’t get as many of those shots where a bunch of sports cars and a truck you’d never see all at once are driving around together and we laugh because we know they’re aliens. A simple pleasure of these movies that I took for granted. To be fair, we do get a good part where Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa, PALM SPRINGS) runs next to Bumblebee driving in car mode. That was cool.

The bottom line: TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is a competently made, well-meaning and reasonably fun movie that those who enjoy large robots battling each other but can’t fucking stand Michael Bay movies may enjoy more than the other ones. But since it’s not as uniquely deranged, while not achieving true blockbuster greatness, its value to the Earthling cause is debatable.

*However, on Action For Everyone Vyce Victus made a very good point that resolving the sick brother subplot by (SPOILER) having the government promise him state of the art healthcare is some bullshit that ironically was already dispelled in Bay’s AMBULANCE (where veterans feel they have to rob a bank to pay for healthcare). Most of us will be more focused on the potential future goofiness that the scene is meant to set up, and I also want to note that Noah’s previous military service didn’t get him this treatment, it was only after he saved the world. But I think it’s a criticism worth thinking about.

APPENDIX: THE VERN VS. TRANSFORMERS SAGA

It occurs to me that I’ve been seeing and writing about each of these movies since 2007, starting with a very harsh review on The Ain’t It Cool News that made many people angry at the time. I’ve never rewatched any of the Bay-directed Transformables, so I have no idea how much I do or do not stand by any of my old opinions. I do know there are things I wrote in these reviews that I find embarrassing now. But if you read them you can see not only the series evolving but me growing up, chilling out, and probly being closer to the “what did you expect? Shakespeare?” doofuses I was so mad at in the first review. Oh well.

prologue: Vern’s Peace Initiative (reviewing BAD BOYS 2 and THE TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE) (August 13, 2006)

Vern vs. TRANSFORMERS – One shall stand and one shall fall… (Ain’t It Cool News, July 3, 2007)

(note: my Michael Bay loving friend referred to in the review is Matt Lynch of The Suspense Is Killing Us fame/Letterboxd infamy)

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (June 30, 2009)

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (July 2, 2011)

TRANSFORMERS: AGE OF EXTINCTION (July 3, 2014)

(To me AGE OF EXTINCTION marked a major shift in the competence, politics and especially action clarity of the series, though I still had plenty of mean things to say about it)

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT (July 19, 2017)

(In my memory THE LAST KNIGHT was crazier and more enjoyable than I was saying in this review. But at least I wasn’t mad anymore.)

BUMBLEBEE

(The one I sincerely like.)

Oh jesus. Skimming through these reviews is making me realize that some day I’m gonna want to rewatch the series and see how they play in retrospect. But not today.