After years of absence, the famous robot movie franchise returns with the 7th episode – Transformers: The Beast Rises. The series directed by Michael Bay is one of the biggest names in the action line of world cinema. The total revenue of the previous 6 parts reached more than 4.8 billion USD. However, the franchise’s recent episodes have been criticized for their low form, leading to Michael Bay’s decision to withdraw from the director’s chair after T.ransformers: The Last Knight (2017).
The Autobots return in Transformers: The Beast Rises.
Seamless super robots appear in Transformers 7.
Director Travis Knight takes over the franchise with a spinoff Bumblebee 2018 but did not achieve the commercial success as expected. That led to the transforming robots having to sleep for many years, until Beast Rises debut. The film is both a sequel of Bumblebeewhich both acts as a reboot of the whole brand Transformers.
The Transformers Cinematic Universe was officially born
Transformers: The Beast Rises not a mere movie part of the franchise. Paramount clearly sees this as an important brick to build a new Hollywood cinematic universe. To accomplish that goal, the team decided to bring many characters from the Beast Wars animated series to the screen.
The army of Maximals – robots capable of transforming into animals – are introduced, which is also the focus and new breeze of the film. These robots originally lived on a planet covered with forests but had to wander to Earth to hide after being invaded by Unicron’s army. The survivors brought with them a treasure that was the Transwarp key with the ability to open the portal to teleport through space.
Along with that is the villainous faction Terrorcons led by Scourge. They ordered Unicorn to pursue the Maximals to steal the key of power. One day, archaeologist Elena (Dominique Fishback) discovers a strange artifact containing half of the Transwarp inside. She accidentally activated the key and attracted the attention of both Maximals and Terrorcons.
Of course, Transformers cannot be complete without the appearance of Autobots – the beloved and central robots of the brand. After learning about the Transwarp key, Optimus Prime signaled to gather his teammates to plan to capture it to open the gate back to the homeland.
At the same time, Mirage – an Autobots disguised as a silver Porsche 964 Carrera RS 3.8 – is stolen by young Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos). While on the run from the police, the car stripped Noah of his driving rights and drove straight to Optimus Prime’s hideout.
Noah becomes the brand’s new lead Transformers, replacing the character played by the actors Shia LaBeouf, Mark Wahlberg in the previous parts. He agreed to help the Autobots steal the key, in return for a sum of money to pay for his brother’s hospital bills.
With the appearance of new forces like Maximals or Terrorcons, the audience will certainly soon welcome more new characters from the Transformers toy and animation brand to the screen in the future. At the same time, the team also revealed in the after credits about a special combination with a whole new line of toys in the sequels.
Content quality is good but lacks breakthrough
Good news for the fans Transformers this part 7 is not bad. The work inherits the direction of building entertainment scripts such as Bumblebee (2018) with the same story of saving the world as the first movie. The script is well-rounded but does not bring much new. The events follow each other logically, but on the contrary, there is no element of surprise.
The main villains of the film come from the Terrorcons faction.
Despite having to install a lot of characters, director Steven Caple Jr. succeeded in arranging the right story lines. The robot factions all have impressive appearances, enough time to shine. The team learned a lot from superhero works like Avengers, Justice League to build the script. This helps Transformers have a story that is quite suitable for today’s mass audience but also creates a sense of overlap.
Unlike the films directed by Michael Bay, Transformers: The Risen Beast focuses on more real-life characters. The roles are built with clear character, moderate depth and contribute to the development of the main storyline. One bright spot of the film is the performance of the live cast. New stars Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback all well capture the character’s personality and role-playing role.
The two male and female leads of Transformers” Rise of the Beast.
In particular, the harmony between the male lead Noah and the robot Mirage voiced by Pete Davidson. The humor in the dialogues between the two characters partly helps the film not to be lengthy and boring in the middle. This duo is expected to replace the Sam – Bumblebee duet of the previous parts.
However, the quality of Transformers: The Beast Rises It’s just okay, not excellent. The film is still quite lacking in emphasis and the climax really makes the viewer explode. The visual stitching has changed quite a bit with the previous parts when Michael Bay has left the director’s chair.
Scoring: 3.5/5
The film received criticism from the majority of critics, only scoring a fresh 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the work received a lot of support from the brand’s fan community. Transformers: The Beast Rises currently scores 86% fresh from audience reviews and is expected to gross around $250 worldwide after its first week, according to Deadline.
Photo: IMDb