Title - Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts
Production - Paramount Pictures, Skydance Media, Di Bonaventura Pictures
Starring - Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Dean Scott Vasquez, Luna Lauren Velez, Peter Cullen, Pete Davidson, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Liza Koshy, Colman Domingo, Cristo Fernandez
Writer - Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters
Director - Steven Caple Jr.
Release - 7 June 2023
I'm writing this review as a fan of the 80's cartoon. If you are a general movie-goer, I cannot tell whether or not if this was a good movie. Just some of the writing decisions, especially during the final showdown, was something I could not accept as it just lacked logic.
To start off, I enjoyed the original and Michael Bay's version of the transforming sound effects. In Rise Of The Beasts, that sound effect has been changed to something more muted and did nothing for the nostalgia. However, unlike the Bay-formers, everything onscreen were very clear. From the way the robots transformed, to the fight sequences, you can see onscreen very clearly what was going on.
But I have a huge problem with the Maximals being introduced. I've never seen the Maximals when they were introduced in the cartoons so I don't know the history. But the concept of the Transformers was "robots in disguise" - which was even a line in the theme song. Why were did the Maximals take on the shape of animals that were back on Earth? Unless you tell me that the planet they were from had these animals and were called the same names as they were on Earth, it didn't make sense for them to exist.
They should have stayed in robot form back on their planet, and then disguised as animals when they arrived on Earth.
Also Michelle Yeoh's voice was more of herself in the beginning of the movie, and then went through a stronger, some kind of a robot synthesizer after her character arrived on Earth. What happened here? Because in the beginning of the movie, her voice was such a distraction as I only heard Michelle Yeoh instead of her character.
I hated the fact that the heroes had to travel to South America (Peru, I think?) to find an artifact. And it could have been anywhere in the whole country but they knew exactly where the artifcat - size of your palms - was hidden.
Anthony Ramos can lead a movie, no problem. Dean Scott Vasquez was surprisingly good as he wasn't an annoying kid. I still can't see Dominique Fishback as a lead yet.
Pete Davidson as Mirage strangely worked very brilliantly, as with most of the others new to voicing the Transformers. Also a bright spark was Cristo Fernandez as Wheeljack because there were some really nice jokes about race and accents there (which also kind of addressed the fact that the robots have accents too).
The end fight was the part that failed for me. Some SPOILERS from here on.
Optimus was getting sucked into the portal to be eaten by Unicron. At this point, Mirage supposedly died, but didn't and "transformed" into a suit of armour for Ramos's character. Mirage fights (in this movie) with a gun and throwing punches, and creating mirages. But Ramos's character inside Mirage, now fights like a ninja, like Neo downloading kungfu in The Matrix.
Why is it when Optimus, leader of the entire Autobots, who could not make a proper, cohesive decision throughout the entire movie; was getting sucked into that portal with everything else around him, and yet Ramos's character, this puny human that just jumped in as the only thing that wasn't affected by the suction?
While on the subject of death, why did everyone in the movie cared more for Bumblebee and made sure to bring him back after he died, and not anyone else? Stupid question gets a stupid answer, because he's Bumblebee, I know. But still.
And as a fan of the 80's originals, I want to gag everytime this new Optimus addressed Bumblebee as "Bee" as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment