Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts Review: Franchise Fatigue Meets '90s Hijinks In The Funniest, Safest Sequel Yet

Look, hopefully it's not too controversial to say that I've yet to watch a single live-action "Transformers" movie — a franchise based on Hasbro toys for the express purpose of selling aforementioned Hasbro toys, mind you — that rises to the baseline level of "good." Although the 2007 original has its occasional highlights, the Travis Knight-directed "Bumblebee" probably came closest by default in 2018. Yet even after trading the juvenile antics and weirdly mean-spirited tone of the Michael Bay era for an earnest and sincere tale of a girl and her distinctively yellow Volkswagen Beetle (who, spoiler alert, was the Autobot soldier Bumblebee in disguise), this feature-length course-correction couldn't quite overcome a script coasting on little more than sheer likability, fan-service, and vibes. In a bitter irony, the tepid box office performance of the prequel movie seemed to affirm the idea that general audiences had burned out on "Transformers" movies just as they'd started to arrive on the upswing.

"Transformers: Rise of the Beasts" marks Hasbro and Paramount's second attempt to revitalize the franchise and get butts back in seats in a post-Bay era. This time, since a straightforward back-to-basics approach didn't really move the needle, the studios called upon a loose adaptation of the dream plotline that would appeal to every '90s kid. The "Beast Wars: Transformers" animated series only lasted three seasons, but the indelible mark it left on the property is also tattooed on the collective psyche of all Millennials of a certain age. With 35-year-old director Steven Caple, Jr. ("Creed II") behind the wheel, his childhood love for the animalistic Maximals and villainous Terrorcons and Predacons practically leaps off the screen.

But for all that, despite making full use of its '90s charm and humor and relying on its impeccable leads — "In the Heights" star Anthony Ramos as Noah Diaz is everything Shia LaBeouf wasn't, refreshingly enough, but it's Pete Davidson's voice role as the Autobot Mirage that steals the whole show — the latest installment of this series can't help but disappoint. "Rise of the Beasts" takes its place as the "best" of the "Transformers" movies only by playing it safe, leaving even the most diehard fans to wonder what could have been instead of gawking over what was.

By now, seven films into this live-action franchise, you know exactly what you're getting from a "Transformers" movie. Although the screenplay (credited to Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber, and Jon Hoeber) at least has the courtesy to get the obligatory beam of light into the sky out of the way at the beginning of the film for a change, much of the story unfolds precisely as you'd expect it.

Like "Bumblebee," "The Last Knight," and, well, pretty much every other movie in this series, the film opens with an exposition-heavy prologue set centuries in the past that fills in newbies and fans alike on all the lore surrounding the creature-like Maximals. They include Ron Perlman's apelike Optimus Primal and Michelle Yeoh's avian Airazor (no, it's never explained why robotic aliens from other galaxies would need to resemble Earth-specific animals). There's also the world-consuming threat of the insatiable "vile god" Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo, but otherwise given the same space-cloud treatment as Galactus in 2007's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer"), and the film's chief MacGuffin involving a key to a trans-warp system that we're told is the only way Transformers can travel from one star system to another (which I'm pretty sure breaks established canon, but whatever).

You know how the rest goes: we jump forward to 1994 Brooklyn so we can meet our lovable human leads. As much as it's time for one of these movies to finally dispense with flesh and blood altogether and just tell a new story with a whole cast of Transformers — hear me out, what if they just made a "Transformers" animated movie – Ramos immediately brings a lived-in sense of screen presence as the put-upon Noah, a character drowning in debt, mounting hospital bills, and failed job interviews from taking care of his sickly younger brother Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez). The film dedicates an impressive amount of screen time to getting us invested in the human side of the story by the time Noah steps into the wrong car and is swept along into the Autobot storyline. The same can't be said for co-lead Dominique Fishback ("The Hate U Give," "Judas and the Black Messiah"), tragically shortchanged as the plot exposition delivery character whose expert knowledge of the relic holding the trans-warp key wrangles her into the action.

Unfortunately, "Rise of the Beasts" drops any real interest it had in the plight of its pint-sized heroes (along with a faint but compelling thread on how much harder it is for people of color to get whisked away on grand adventures like this than other kinds of protagonists) once the world-ending stakes and globetrotting plot kick in. Cue the overly-familiar set pieces pitting some invading villains led by Scourge (voiced by Peter Dinklage in a heavily-modulated performance that renders him unrecognizable and not in a good way) against Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), Bumblebee, Primal, and an assortment of other Autobots/Maximals who mostly just show up when the plot requires a new vehicle or power set.

Damningly, after waves of weightless and uninspired fight scenes that build to a climax echoing the ugly and formless VFX work from the finale of "Avengers: Endgame," you might just find yourself feeling nostalgic for the high-flying chaos of when Michael Bay used to wild out with his unmistakable approach to such indulgent spectacle.

But as much as "Rise of the Beasts" struggles to justify its own existence, mostly settling for a competent sheen between cinematographer Enrique Chediak's functional camerawork and a score by Jongnic Bontemps that largely recedes into the background, we're provided a welcome and constant source of energy through Pete Davidson's voice acting as the newest Autobot Mirage. We first meet him in disguise as the Porsche that Noah tries to carjack early on in a desperate attempt for cash, instead leading him on a fun chase sequence and inducting him into the wide world of Transformers for his trouble. An early scene with the other Autobots perfectly sets up Mirage's rebellious and punk-rock dynamic against the far more serious Optimus Prime, who's mostly just a stick-in-the-mud with no interest in playing well with others and has a troubling propensity for declaring how much brutal, cold-blooded murder he wants to take part in (one of the film's few weird holdovers from the Bay movies). Mirage, for all intents and purposes, is the film's biggest breath of fresh air.

Thankfully, Davidson's casting almost singlehandedly injects a sense of irreverent fun and surprisingly effective comedy to cut through the self-seriousness of the rest of the picture. The chemistry he shares with Ramos leads to plenty of laughs and even a few touching moments between the pair later on — with all due respect to the speech-impaired Bumblebee (who is relegated to a largely pointless subplot that falls headfirst into the prequelitis trap, albeit with one heck of a payoff in the final act), it's wild how much more mileage one can get out of these movies with a robot who can actually talk and emote. But the best element the Autobot adds to the proceedings has to be the Wu-Tang Clan-heavy soundtrack, which the filmmakers clearly relished and curated with enthusiasm.

There are bursts of inspiration here and there, such as when the plot shifts to Peru and suddenly takes on an "Indiana Jones" flavor (which, annoyingly, the characters can't help but comment upon) or when an early horror-tinged sequence puts a new spin on the famous "Raptors in the kitchen" scene from "Jurassic Park." But such joys don't arrive consistently enough to make this venture worthwhile. A tantalizing post-credits scene sets up a storyline that might have fans willing to go along for one last ride, but "Rise of the Beasts" confirms what we already knew: not even Pete Davidson can save a franchise running on fumes.

/Film Rating: 5 out of 10