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It’s important to note that no one is aiming for monumental, Oscar-winning performances here. This is about robots that transform and battle each other. These movies aren’t going to be very deep, and that is perfectly okay. That said, there’s a basic agreement between the audience and creator that guarantees an enjoyable time with beloved characters. This promise is not fulfilled entirely in Transformers Rise of the Beasts.
Not all fans of Beast Wars are fans of the original Transformers and that makes adapting the material a bit complex for the film franchise. But there are many more fandoms involved, including those who are only interested in the movies. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is incapable of fully embracing its Beast Wars heritage because it continues to try and appease an audience that still enjoys narratives featuring the antagonists in earlier productions, even if those stories now exist in different timelines.
After the transformation into live-action, Autobots’ fan-favorite characters, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, are also present. This is the first movie that has no Decepticons in the entire film. Although it has Beast Wars in its title, most of the film is centered around Autobot’s new human friends. The screenplay works overtime trying to make the audience relate to other Transformers, making a mockery out of the cliche phrase ‘away from Bumblebee’, yet the character they seem to Dub as Mirage, another sleazy Autobot. For the umpteenth, in this film franchise, we see a human accidentally get into a car which turns out to be an Autobot. It’s the same old tale that we have already binge-watched.
The screenplay feels nervous and overly careful. Fans of Beast Wars would surely expect greater representation of the Maximals in their dedicated feature. For some characters like Cheetor, the best they could manage to muster are what seem to be four lines. Instead of taking their character and story arcs in a much bolder approach, the film relies on its older popular characters and introduces its new ones at a slower pace. It would have been better if the narrative began with a human protagonist who’s familiarizing himself with the Maximals with the Autobots as the actual cameos. As it is, the Maximals are coming off as background characters, while once again, the focus is on the Autobots.
A bland plot indeed. In the first act, a MacGuffin is introduced, where it is taken by various warring parties that further pass it to one another. If that’s not enough, there is some globetrotting, a sky beam, and a planet-destroying creature. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is no different from any mainstream action films you have presumably seen in the last 10-15 years. Clearly, there is not a considerable amount of effort made in originality here. A few scenes feature our human protagonists being stalked by some Predacon scorpions, which adds a horror element to the film. Those moments are refreshingly tension-filled, but sadly the rest of the movie is a blur of indistinguishable action pieces that are disappointingly familiar for a Transformers movie. It seems there are no exemplary moments or set pieces that one would find memorable.
Like other films in the franchise, this one benefits from not being overly complex as this allows for relatively easy and less time-consuming world-building. As a result, the film’s runtime is reduced, but it does seem to feel a bit long-winded. However, it still manages to feel overly simplistic. I know that I personally am not expecting much, but everything is so overly simplistic that the world rules set in place are beginning to unravel with no indication of how things work. It is similar to how someone who watched the movie franchise alone while casually tuning into Beast Wars would feel. The reasoning and logic don’t add up. For example, mammals appear to have assumed the forms of Earth creatures long before leaving their alien world. Transformers from other timelines had to first scan the planet and only then assumed the shape of Earth-based creations. Some of the Transformers regret not being able to fly, so the solution is creating a new character whose sole purpose is to be able to do so.
But why is it that they do not shapeshift into an object that allows them to fly? The single most puzzling aspect is that there are two people who are not contemplating these important points, most especially when their primary role in the story is to serve as a mouthpiece for explanation.
Regarding the human characters, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has put some effort into their development. They are not obnoxiously intolerable or turned into mere props for people to gawk at. Rather, they are realistic and somewhat likable and have their own motives. While they could have completed their character arcs more satisfactorily, having humans that are not utterly annoying is progress for this film series. So far, when it comes to everything else, the film has given the impression of needing a lot more improvement, and providing praise to such a level seems dire; such expectation should not be put on developed characters, but unfortunately is required for the viewer in this setting.
Whatever the case, the place looks nice. Although Peru is indeed a country that I would like to visit, the advertisement does make it seem like more than it is. I was also impressed to see Machu Pichu being used as a location, and it was good they had a few cuts where they showed the view surrounding the landmark it is something that is not very common in the travel brochures which usually show the angle of the ruins. That was fun.
Everything that followed was a muddle of dull and lifeless actions that had neither the interest nor the capability to relaunch the Autobots and shift to a Maximal-centric narrative. The resolution to the film was biting off more than it could chew, as it was unbelievably simple to come to it much earlier, making the entirety of the narrative seem superfluous. Did any of the new characters resonate with me? Not particularly. It really does seem like they are due for another movie to backfill all of the gaps, but that should really have been done here. I don’t wish to judge this movie too harshly, as it is not ineffective. It’s mediocre. It’s not particularly good, but the absence of a certain quality makes it better than a few others in this collection. If I had to make a list, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts would be somewhere in the center, next to the ones that are actually good and above the ones that are downright terrible in terms of story. Some hardcore fans might find this film fulfilling and those who benötigen a Hasbro cinematic universe might find it appealing as well, but the average audience will find it boring.
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