My Review of 'Bumblebee'

I have to say, when I first heard that they were coming out with another Transformers movie, I groaned to myself. These movies were getting progressively bad. I admit that I did enjoy the first Transformers live action movie, but it didn't really wow me. Maybe it's because I grew up watching the Transformers cartoon when I was really young, but that wouldn't explain why I liked the Beast Wars series that came out way later. I'm okay for change but the story has to be engaging.

I liked the first Transformers, then when I saw the second movie, I thought it was a bit of a stinker but it did great in the box office so they decided to make a third. The third one was so bad I almost left the theater in the middle of watching it. That's probably the first time I was so bored that I wanted to leave a movie. The problem was that they emphasized too much on action sequences. They wanted to make things bigger and better and the robots continually got larger and the fights got crazier but the story suffered a lot. Then the Mark Wahlberg Transformer movie came out. I thought that was pretty ridiculous. That gave me such a bad taste for Transformers movies, I stopped watching them.

So why did I watch the Bumblebee Transformers movie? Well, my friends started raving over it. I didn't think it's possible because they grew up with the Transformers as well and they hated the Transformers movie franchise as much as I did. So I talked to my brother who is a big Transformers fan and he said he wanted to watch it, so I thought "why not?" I'm glad I went because it was a pretty fun time.

So Bumblebee is actually a prequel to the first Transformers movie. It's set in the 80s and gives the origin of the Bumblebee character. In a way, this is like the Rogue One of the Transformers franchise. There's a war on Cybertron and Optimus Prime sends Bumblebee to protect Earth so that the Autobots can regroup. Bumblebee is sent to Earth but a Decepticon chases him down and a battle ensues that results in Bumblebee losing his memories.

Although this explains Bumblebee's origin story, the movie is actually about Charlie played by Hailee Steinfeld. She's just turned 18 and is still coping with the loss of her father. She finds Bumblebee and revives him. Since Bumblebee has lost his memories, it becomes a fish out of water tale of this robot trying to figure things out while Charlie deals with friends and family issues. Bumblebee is sort of like her pet dog.

All of the actors did a great job with this one and brought a lot of charm to the film. The visuals are great as you'd expect Transformers movies to be. I would say the fights on Cybertron, in particular, were amazing because they really threw me back to the old cartoon transformers that I knew in the past but how I'd imagine them in today's CGI graphics. There were too many amazing fight scenes.

What will really keep you glued is the chemistry that each of the characters have with one another. There's a nice sense of innocence an naivety that will give you the same feels as you did when you watched Goonies. I was glued to the movie and their charms really swept me off my feet.

Overall, I would say that this is a movie that you have to see in the theaters. I watched the movie in 3D and the effects were great. You have to see this on the big screen and enjoy the big sound and great visuals. Since the story is fun and charming, I think this will be a great home purchase as well. I'm giving this movie a nine out of ten for Transformers fans. I would give it an eight out of ten for those that don't really follow Transformers. You don't really need to know anything about Transformers to understand anything since it's really about Charlie a new character that they've brought to the series.