For years, literally, the Transformers franchise has had one basic problem: all Transformers films are about big dumb robots fighting other big dumb robots. In the worst of them, you can’t even tell which are the good big dumb robots and which are the bad big dumb robots.
The Transformers producers identified this issue and came up with a solution: sometimes the big dumb robots are animals.
Sigh. OK, innovation is innovation, I suppose. It comes from the same place where the goto robot –in this film, it’s Mirage- is now voiced by Pete Davidson. I’m not sure where this inspiration came from; producers, this movie franchise you have about giant battle robots that change into cars and planes and animals and crap, were you hoping it would appeal to an even younger audience?
I tell you this much; research is not big in the Transformers world. This is evidenced immediately on screen when the film shows us “primals.” Do keep in mind in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, there is an Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman). The former looks like a red building; the latter looks like a mechanical gorilla. Ok, so I see the mechanical gorilla and the mechanical rhino, so this mini pre-battle must be taking place in Africa, yes?
South America. Oh.
Why is there a Transformer who looks like a gorilla in South America? Isn’t the point of these things to disguise themselves? Gorillas and rhinos don’t live in South America. And they didn’t 5,000 years ago, either.
Never mind.
Anyway, apparently this battle wasn’t on Earth, yet. Do excuse me. The South America anomaly didn’t happen until later. Wait. Now everything makes even less sense. Other planets evolved mammal life that looks exactly like that on Earth? Anyway, the good guys fled to Earth with the key to the universe and the bad guys only figured out how to get it 5,000 years later. And that’s when the bad robots and more good robots show up on Earth and disguise themselves slightly better than gorillas in South America. At least the kids are learning, right?
Human Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) can’t get a job, so he gets talked into stealing a Porsche that turns out to be Mirage. Meanwhile, Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback) works on artifacts at Ellis 
Island. Half the key to the universe is disguised as a falcon whose origins prove baffling. Look, I’m no archaeologist, but maybe the Hasbro symbol in the corner was an indication that the “artifact” might not be from Ancient Egypt.
And before long, the robots show up and acquire the humans to join in their intergalactic battle.
Is anybody bugged here about the two-part MacGuffin? This is the same basic plot as Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. What? Did you all go to the same pitch meeting?
I loathe the Transformers franchise. The characters are one-dimensional. The fights are interminable. The plots are forgettable and the humor always seems forced whether it be racist or not. I measure Transformers films in how quickly they put me to sleep. That said, I lasted past the first hour before I closed my eyes on this one. It certainly wasn’t good or justifiable. But as a non-five-year-old boy, I could tolerate this one past Act I, which hasn’t always been the case. All the same, there’s very little I’m taking from this experience.
No matter how you slice it, these films ain’t terrif
They’ll start reeking badly so try not to sniff
But here’s a new feature:
A bot can be a creature
Go transform to a lemming and jump off a cliff
Rated PG-13, 127 Minutes
Director: Steven Caple Jr.
Writer: Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters
Genre: Big dumb robots
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Big dumb robots
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People tired of big dumb robots
