Review: ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ offers humans to care about and machines to tolerate

The Transformers franchise has always had a protagonist problem.

Michael Bay often dangled Shia LeBouf’s Sam Witwicky inches from death but never gave a reason to root for the erratic motormouth. Then he pivoted to Mark Wahlberg’s unconvincing scientist Cade Yeager, who looked the part of an action hero but was an emotional dud. Travis Knight directed the prequel Bumblebee, which offered a female lead in Hailee Steinfeld’s Charlie Watson — but the plucky car mechanic was at times overshadowed by the yellow Autobot and the mythological baggage he brought with him. Steven Caple Jr.’s Transformers: Rise of the Beasts finally offers two sympathetic human heroes whose journeys feel more important than the robot chaos around them. Unfortunately, the Autobots still hog the spotlight far too often.

The story begins with a loud exposition dump about a planet-eating god destroying a world of so-called Maximals: Autobots that take the form of Earth’s animals, even though they’ve apparently never been here before. That changes when the Maximals must smuggle a Transwarp Key to Earth, where they hide for several millennia and wait for the title card.

Already, the film is miscalculating by parading its special effects up top when the story would be better served by saving the Autobots for later; after audiences have had a chance to feel grounded with the human characters. It’s as if Hollywood is terrified that, in this age of wait-until-streaming, people who bothered to drive to the theater and buy popcorn are going to storm out and demand their money back if they don’t see a giant robot punch another giant robot within three minutes of the movie starting. Caple Jr. misses his chance at awe, which he could have achieved by holding back the mayhem until the script did the work of building an actual conflict.

Things do start to look up when we travel to Brooklyn circa 1994 to meet ex-military electronics expert Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), who struggles to find a job to help out his mom and ensure his ailing younger brother has access to healthcare. We’re also introduced to museum intern Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), who studies an ancient artifact that bears the insignia of the Maximals. Noah doesn’t land the job because his references say he struggles with responsibility; in reality, he simply can’t choose between his teammates’ needs and those of his family. Elena, meanwhile, is clearly the smartest person working at the museum, but her boss hogs the credit while assigning her menial tasks like dry cleaning.

There’s coded racism working against both characters, and Caple Jr. pitches it just right. Both leads of color are clearly oppressed by the system, leading Noah to steal a car for some quick cash and Elena to accidentally wreck the artifact while trying to earn herself some credit. However, before Rise of the Beasts can become too interesting, the Autobots show up, drawn to a signal sent by the artifact. The Porsche that Noah steals turns out to be one of them — an affable underdog called Mirage. Optimus Prime and Bumblebee also enter the narrative, in addition to a few others. Within minutes, they’re battling Terrorcons and destroying public property, all while somehow not being discovered by the media (because this is a prequel to Bay’s entries, when the Autobots go public).

This is when viewers who aren’t die-hard Transformers fans will start getting that familiar sinking feeling. The same problems that have plagued this franchise since 2007 begin to crop up, including action that’s shot way too close and cut way too fast to appreciate the scale of what’s happening, an over-reliance on shots of actors staring upward at what was probably a tennis ball on set, and grating sound design that bludgeons the audience instead of helping them understand where things are in relation to each other.

You can feel Caple Jr. straining to keep his human heroes front and center, and he manages sporadically via the choice to have Noah and Optimus at odds over how to deal with the Transwarp MacGuffin. Noah wants to destroy it, while Optimus wants to use it to return his brethren to their home planet; though again, we know that doesn’t happen because this is a prequel, making the conflict dramatically inert. The remaining Maximals eventually join the fight, and the movie then pivots from honestly well-made interpersonal scenes involving Noah and Elena to frenetic action bouts that look like CG mud. Even the dialogue scenes between the Autobots are a burden; the closeups of Optimus approximate supremely boring gazes into terminal gray space, and the Maximals barely exhibit any characteristics beyond the animals they mimic.

The final act does provide its share of awesome moments, helped by Caple Jr. finally pulling back his camera and letting us see the action. But the film tanks its human-focused resolution with a tacked-on ending that’s not just sequel bait, but a setup for a new Hasbro shared universe that poisons any goodwill the final 30 minutes manage to achieve.

Going forward — and it will — the Tranformers franchise must find a way to use the Autobots differently. Perhaps Optimus and company should be utilized more like movie monsters, showing up only occasionally and treated with the kind of holy-crap ceremony that Steven Spielberg achieved with his dinosaurs in the early Jurassic Park films. Sure, we’re used to the Autobots by now, but they still shouldn’t feel so common. Bumblebee had the right idea of foregrounding just one of the robotic heroes, but it still would have benefited from putting the exposition on the back burner as well.

Next time, the filmmakers should divorce the humans from extended Hasbro lore, and have the Autobots dip in and out as dictated by the script, not the studio. What an annoyance to have a Tranformers movie with well-drawn humans, only to have them choke on the exhaust fumes of franchise expectations.