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
