If there's any film franchise that's completely surprised in terms of pulling a shocking reversal in quality, it's that of the Transformers series. Beginning in 2007, the explosive Michael Bay directed franchise began promising then saw it's quality steadily diminish with each sequel, making audiences question if there was anything more to the series than just mindless explosions and giant robots fighting. Thankfully as 2018's Bumblebee showed, there is with the franchises latest entry, Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, continuing the series upward trend in quality with it delivering popcorn entertainment that's well-executed and surprisingly heartfelt.
Taking place after the events of Bumblebee and now set in the 90's, Rise Of The Beasts has two humans, Noah Diaz and Elena Wallace, joining forces with the Autobots and the Maximals to prevent the arrival of the planet-eater Transformer, Unicron, when the Terrorcons and an army of Predacon scorpions, led by Scourge, seek to obtain the Transwarp key. What makes Beasts an appealing catch for fans like Bumblebee, is how well-balanced both films feel in shifting back and forth with exploring the robotic side of the story along with blending human emotion that actually works. The film is not short of any of the series trademark action mayhem, but surprises with the amount of heart it carries. As someone who began the franchise with genuine enthusiasm and nearly lost interest prior to Bumblebee, the newest entry proves that the series can actually work and that there's still plenty of life left in it.
As far as human and voice acting performances go, Beasts cast is terrific with everyone bringing a genuine sense of excitement to their roles that makes the experience even more enjoyable. Anthony Remos impresses as Noah Diaz, an ex-military electronics expert who lives with his family in Brooklyn while trying to support them. Remos creates a likable main lead for the story whom the audience can empathize and find relatability with. He puts his talent on full display here and establishes himself as being one of the industry's promising new stars. Dominique Fishback also shines as artifact researcher and museum intern, Elena Wallace. She proves to be equally charismatic as Remos with both making for appealing main leads, who provide the stories heart. Other notable performances from the human cast include Luna Lauren Velez as Noah's mother, Breanna, Dean Scott Vazquez as Noah's younger brother, Kris, who suffers from sickle cell disease, and Tobe Nwigwe as Noah's friend Reek who persuades him into committing grand theft auto. With the films voice acting work regarding the Transformers, Peter Cullen commands as leader of the Autobot resistance, Optimus Prime with Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, and Michelle Yeoh providing strong support as Optumus Primal, leader of the Maximals who transforms into the western lowland, Scourge who leads the Terrorcons, and maximal warrior, Airazor, who transforms into a peregrine falcon.
Stepping into the director's chair is Creed ll director, Steven Caple Jr, who does a fine job of finding the right balance between developing the films human characters while delivering on the expected action and spectacle. He does a fine job of staging action sequences that are well-executed and consists of Transformers frequently being shot, blown-up, and decapitated which goes in line with the traditional level of violence shown throughout the series. The films soundtrack knocks it out of the park with bridging old series music with newer pieces. Audiences will appreciate the versatility with the newer themes for the joining of forces between the Maximals, Autobots, and Terrorcons with fans also being able to single out familiar beats from Steve jablonsky and Vince DiCola's previous work. At 2h 7m, the story is always kept moving with the first half being used to establish the human characters before unleashing the action in the second. With the newest Transformers, Caple jr. combines action with poignant character moments that thankfully add more substance to the story rather than it just being mindless explosions.
The story for Rise of the Beasts revolves around themes pertaining to legends, teamwork, sacrifice, friendship, leadership, and seeking safe refuge with the films overall message saying that working together can ultimately make a difference as evidenced by Noah and Elena teaming up with the Autobots and Maximals to save the world from the Decepticons. Whereas the main leads could've easily ended up being throwaway human characters, they're written in a way which makes them palatable to audiences and not just being serviceable. The autobots are also well-developed with the story serving as being a partial Optimus Prime origin story with the latter shown to be distrusting of humans, and is only concerned with protecting his own autobots until they can return to Cybertron. It is through his partnership with Noah and Elena that he experienced a change of heart. Bumblebee and Noah's relationship is well-handled and hits home in a similar fashion to that of the first Transformers and Bumblebee with his relationships with both Sam and Charlie. Along with the films action is hilarious bits of humor including several jokes regarding E.T being referenced. The scripts most compelling element, however, is the promise it fulfills in introducing the Beast Wars animal Transformers with the teaming up of Optimus Prime with Optimus Primal being exciting for fans.
While it can be stated that the story sticks to the series trend of once again placing it's human counterparts front-and-center to the story, fans will be pleased to know that such a move doesn't harm the film as the main leads are likeable ones. Like Bumblebee before it, Rise Of The Beasts also proves that it's possible to blend excitement and decent human emotion to this franchise. Both sequels are full of heart and offer glimpses of a promising new future for the Transformers cinematic universe. It doesn't beat Bumblebee, but it proves that when you have capable filmmakers who can inject heart into their story while delivering high-adrenaline action, the results are richly satisfying ones.
Final Verdict: A must watch for both Transformers and action fans.
Images Courtesy Of Paramount Pictures
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