Transformers Rise of the Beasts Review Embargo is Lifted and Starts Screening Wide Tonight

noctorro wrote:Just saw it, I'm not even gonna say spoilers because this site has been posting spoiler stuff for the past 6 months anyway.

It was fun, action was great! And it was way more robot focussed.
The trailer spoiled Unicron, stupid as hell, the hook should've been the maximals and leave Unicron for the fans to go ape sh*t in theaters. Anyway, the director doesn't have power over the trailer people.

It has some wokeness, but there just about 4 stupid short dialogue moments, nothing more. Has nothing to do with the plot. And all those youtube channels (josiah rises etc.) will try and blow it up to all hell. No, it's not woke, has some silly woke stuff. But it's just as silly as Bumbelbee pissing on a sector 7 agent in Transformers 1, and the masturbation joke in Transformers 1.

Final fight was cool and dissapointing at the same time. They say the mission, and when they do that in movies I completely get bored by it, you just have to watch it through what they say in the mission planning. Don't do that. And the landscape was uninteresting, you can see it in the trailer.

Scourge was a letdown, just a generic slightly stronger than Optimus robot dude. Nothing more, he has some story about his planet and people but that's one line of dialoge nothing more.
Graphically it's mixed. Optimus doesn't look good, he looked way better in Bumblebee, why they changed him god knows. Some bots don't seem to have enough metal shine, others do and look way better.

So in my summary:

The good:
- Optimus Primal
- Human characters, I liked them
- Arcee <3
- Fight scenes, they work together and long shots, no quick cuts
- Terrorcons talk
- The opening scene, that was awesome!

The bad:
- Generic villain
- Too McGuffin filled
- Graphically it isn't Dark of the Moon
- It was missing Bay spectacle, big setpieces

Overall I think for the first viewing I put it like this:

1. Bumblebee
2. Dark of the Moon
3. Rise of the Beasts
4. Transformers 1
5. Age of Extinction (yeah I know, but I really like it)
6. Revenge of the fallen
7. The Last Knight (my gods)

Also I think the movie should've been longer. It goes very fast, very few moments to breathe. Don't add new stuff, just give what you have some more time. Maybe some more about the Maximal planet, or Scourge's planet. More world building dialogue and more breathing time for some scenes.
Maybe a blu ray release will be a bit more polished.

For Transformers and Beast Wars fans, go watch and support it.
It's waaaaaaaay better than Prime Wars and War for Cybertron on Netflix.

noctorro wrote:It has some wokeness, but there just about 4 stupid short dialogue moments, nothing more. Has nothing to do with the plot. No, it's not woke, has some silly woke stuff. For Transformers and Beast Wars fans, go watch and support it.

Why was this posted?

Emerje wrote:Watched the movie Thursday at 3pm. I like it. Can't say I even remember any "wokeness" in the movie,

Anyway, I assume at some point we'll get an Apelinq repaint (or even a retool?)

They really did miss an opportunity to make the Terrorcons sympathetic villains. They should have painted them as characters that didn't enjoy what they do but were forced to by Unicron,

Finally, they really should have explained better what was meant when Primal said he was their future and their past. Beast Wars fans get it, but casuals watching the movie wouldn't.

Emerje

G1OptimusPAX wrote:

noctorro wrote:Just saw it, .

Why was this posted?

Rodimus Prime wrote:

noctorro wrote:It has some wokeness, but there just about 4 stupid short dialogue moments, nothing more. Has nothing to do with the plot. No, it's not woke, has some silly woke stuff. For Transformers and Beast Wars fans, go watch and support it.

The director doesn't deserve it. If those 4 moments have nothing to do with the story, why include them?

Cyber Bishop wrote:I am glad you posted it to be honest.

anantha3 wrote:Did scourge beat optimus the second round

anantha3 wrote:So Primal does not help Prime in beating Scourge its all Optimus?

This film is ok. It's basically dollar bin Marvel with skybeams, an army of no name villains that come out of nowhere for the finale that takes place in a drab CG landscape. BUT this is still a step in the right direction for a Transformers film. It does a lot of things right like have a focus on the robots, have action scenes you can follow (mostly), no annoying human characters, minimal bathroom humour and lots of transformations. While this all sounds like basic asks for a Transformers film, you'd be hard pressed to find any film from the live action Transformers franchise have all of those requirements outside of Bumblebee. Not to say Bayverse elements are completely gone though.

As I wrote previously, the reboot/not a reboot discussion does not matter if elements from Bayverse are still found within this film. And Bayverse Optimus is here, big time. Not only is it the same face as the earlier Bay films (which looks worse than before in the more G1 style helmet) but his personality is exactly the same, very focused on violence in both his dialogue and his actions. It really surprised me how this film almost goes out of its way to be different from the earlier Bay films, getting a lot of elements right, but sticking the same Optimus at the core of it. So if people want this to be a different continuity, then sure, fine, you now have a new Bayverse continuity, nobody wins here.

The script also suffers from a lack of polish. This is more mcguffin centric then probably any previous Transformers movie to date (which is insane to type) and instead of giving us something clear, you get a really needlessly complicated artifact which turns the writing into utter nonsense. It's a key that hasn't been seen for one thousand years. But it's made by the Maximals who are the future of the autobots and developped this technology that Unicron needs to travel across the universe even though Unicron himself provides Scourge, his henchman, with technology to travel across the universe. It's just nonsense.
More gripes of mine include minimal time spent on Cheetor and Rhinox who have little to no lines in the film and are only seen in their robot modes for a grand total of 15 seconds (not an exageration, you are free to time it yourself), and never in a clear shot. For a film called Rise of the Beasts, you'd think the beasts would be the main selling point, instead of Optimus Prime just wanting to rip spines apart, but no.

So while the film finally has all the pieces there, and gets the idea of what a live action Transformers film should be like, the finished script just isn't compelling and the final action set piece has all the negatives both fans and critics are tired of with Marvel films. I will give it this though, Steven Caple Jr did an excellent job on the pacing. This film just zips right through but the scenes never feel disjointed within the quick pace either. It's very basic go from point A to point B stuff, but I think it's a good foundation for these films going forward, which is why I am still excited for what is to come in this franchise. I would rate this just slightly above average as a film. In terms of Transformers films, I don't think it's on the same level as Bumblebee. It's closer to the first Transformers film, and while that first Michael Bay film might be a better movie, I would say Rise of the Beasts is a better Transformers Movie, which actually matters to me more when all is said and done.

- William-James88

I thought the movie was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. I would probably rank it with DotM right now as my favorite TF movie.

The standout star of the movie absolutely was Mirage. I loved him, and he got a ton of screen time and lines, and he even had a nice character arc throughout the story while keeping it fun. I am so glad that we got him, and I really hope that sequels will use him as well as they did here.

Primal was my 2nd favorite of the movie. Ron Perlman really nailed him. You can tell he learned some stuff from PotP, and had much better direction here. His voice really added gravitas to all of what Primal did. I really liked him. Well done.

Scourge would be the 3rd guy that stood out to me in the movie. Peter Dinklage did a great job as his voice, and he certainly got some great money shots. The opening scene of him coming out of the woods to confront Apelinq was awesome, that was so cool! I also appreciate how it took Mirage, then Noah, then Prime, and finally lava to get to him. He was a cool villain for sure.

The rest of the cast was pretty good too. There really wasn't a bot that was bad. Maybe a few under-used, like Rhinox and Wheeljack, but they are still there for sequels, and pretty much everyone got a stand out character moment. I personally loved how they handled Wheeljack.

Plot of the movie was good, it was definitely breakneak speed, could have used maybe 10 extra minutes to slow some stuff down a smidge. But there really wasn't a lag in the movie at all.

I love how Prime just has bots around the world, so Wheeljack was already prepping for their arrival, and Stratosphere was an uber. Which, BTW, winning line from Mirage: I'm walking to peru!

I think it ended up being a good movie. It was certainly strong, and I would argue that AOE is the only movie that came close to the level of characterization of the cast. There was a strong bot cast, and some good humans, and some good moments as well.

I loved it, glad it's finally here, and I will gladly see it again.

- D-Maximal_Primal

noctorro wrote:The wokeness was small, but I have pointy ears because of how Hollywood treats its consumers. There was as silly bit on racism and assuming. But it was harmless imho.

noctorro wrote:Optimus didn't get an upgrade (like beefy tank truck toy we got in stores), so why can he defeat Scourge now? I like my movies with power level consistencies.

D-Maximal_Primal wrote:PS: for SS, on top of what we have coming so far plus what is leaked to finish the main casts, we now need a corrupted Airazor, Apelinq, Stratosphere, All the Mirages mentioned above, Exo-suit Noah, maybe a battle damaged Scourge with his face revealed, Scorponoks, maybe some retooled Freezers (3 pack maybe?), Haslab Unicron, and I'd still like Transit even if he ended up a deleted scene.

william-james88 wrote:I thought of you while watching the film. Remember when you were asking why all reviewers post their figures in the same kneeling pose every damn time? Well it just so happens that 3 seperate characters do the exact same pose in this film. Noah, Prime and Bumblebee. This film went all out on the Ironman pose.

Nope, Prime does it all on his own, but he uses the environment to mess Scourge up, like Lava and the quickly rotating tower.

Emerje wrote:My thoughts on the movie weren't used in the article, but they're here (towards the top of the page) if anyone wants to read them.

Emerje

william-james88 wrote:Now that I think of it, what was the point of off road Bee? His off road alt mode is a big part of the promotional campaign and toyline but the prominent shot we see in the trailer is the only shot we see in the movie. We never see him get that alt mode, he's just suddenly different in one shot.

Also, weird that they gave wheeljack ears for a split second just to have it in the trailer, but then he loses them instantly.

-Kanrabat- wrote:

william-james88 wrote:Now that I think of it, what was the point of off road Bee? His off road alt mode is a big part of the promotional campaign and toyline but the prominent shot we see in the trailer is the only shot we see in the movie. We never see him get that alt mode, he's just suddenly different in one shot.

Also, weird that they gave wheeljack ears for a split second just to have it in the trailer, but then he loses them instantly.

Easy.
Marketing.

People complained about Wheeljack's look so they threw them a little bone.

As for Bee, he was benched for half the movie but they didn't dare mention that in the promotions. As for "where" Bee got his off-road look, he must have chosen it out of convenience. There's a "new rule" in ROTB. Transformers can transform into whatever the fuk they want. They just have to think about it, as demonstrated by Mirage.

Now I'll wait for a voyager garbage truck Mirage and a leader class Breakaway.