What would the end of the year film season be without a well-known movie franchise to entice those 18-34 year-old single males in those theater seats--cha-ching? Pretty empty, since so many of this demographic are fairly free during this time. Hollywood isn't stupid for yhey know who will like whatever the films they are attempting to push. The film offered is that of "Bumblebee"--you know, the next installment of that "Transformers" franchise.
On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small San Francisco bay area beach town. Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary yellow VW bug.
The problem in keeping a 25 foot robot is that others are looking for him, namely Agent Jack Burns (John Cena), Dr. Powell (John Ortiz) and others. So Charlie;s next door neighbor, Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) inadvertently helps her help Bumblebee in combatting Transformer foes attempting to kill Bumblebee so they can take over the Earth.
Others to round out the cast are Jason Drucker as Otis, Charlie's younger brother, Pamela Adlon as Sally, Charlie's mom, Stephen Schneider as Ron, Charlie's stepdad, Ricardo Hoyos as Tripp, Glynn Turman as General Whalen, Len Cariou as Uncle Hank and Kollin Holtz as Craig.
This was effectively directed by Travis Knight ("Kubo and the Two Strings" '16) plus a ton of animation experience, Considering the amount of animation work this filmmaker has been involved with, it is surprising that the producers would've been comfortable in Knight helming this. Although this film is somewhat like an animated film--the Transformers are cartoonish like, it is still surprising that they would've been given Knight the responsibility to direct a film that would profit considering the price tag of this. Well, all that animation work must have paid off, because the characters were effective and well thought out. He should receive more work. It was well written by Christina Hodson ("Shut In" '16, "Unforgettable" '17) based on her story, which is based on the Hasbro Transformer Action Figures. As with many other franchises, we find this film introducing Bumblebee's origins. After we've gotten to know a character well enough, it becomes high time that we know where this character came from and more about them as individuals. Hodson does an effective job of allowing us to see that in this installment replete with befriending a young earthling and the pitfalls of attempting to coexist with the military. When this franchise started back in 2007 with "Transformers", I really thought this wasn't going very far since it was actually based on a toy--wow, I was way off! This was certainly as well pulled off as its predecessors and with that, it will definitely profit well so we can come back in 2-3 years and see another installment. It did get a bit bogged down, script-wise, where there was a bit too much going back and forth, but all in all, this storyline was a fun ride. Obviously, the visual effects predominantly designed by ILM (Industrial, Light & Magic), Scanline VFX and Rodeo FX were seamless and gave an incredible look.
As aforementioned, the visual effects were grandiose, so if you have any plans to see this, you've got to see this on the large screen, otherwise it will be lost on a 50 incher. In fact if big-budget films are your thing, this has an impressive IMAX format to really take it in.
Out of 4 Stars: 3 Rated: PG-13 114mins.
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