Bumblebee (2018)

[BetterButter]

Quote

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie, on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken.

[Perfect Xero]

I stopped watching the Transformer movies after being subjected to the second one but this actually looks ... kinda good. And the bots actually look like Transformers and not like an ambulatory junk pile.

[ApathyMonger]

General thoughts:
 

Spoiler

 

Bumblebee is fun. Nothing too surprising in there, but Hailee Steinfeld’s a great actress and Travis Knight’s a good director, so it’s a good movie.

The military/Decepticon stuff is all fairly thin and obvious, but there’s not that much of it; the movie is much more interested in the lead character’s home life. Pamela Adlon (who I’m sort of surprised has never done voice work on a Transformers series) helps make those scenes feel better than they need to be.

 

[dkb]

Gotta thank VW Canada for the free screening tonight, as I have never consumed anything Transformers related before in my life. I know of the Shia LeBeof movies, and have heard that there was an animated series though.

 

I really liked it. It was fun and funny and I was awwing over Bumblebee; he's the cutest!! I want my own robot car!  I'm going to assume the previous movies are not as good, with all the stuff that is said about them. If they are like this movie, I'd watch them.

Other than that I agree with your points @ApathyMonger.

[calliope1975]

Just got home. I really liked it and alternated between I love you Bee and would die for you and EFF 'em up Bee! John Cena may have had the best line in the movie, or it got the biggest reaction in my theater. I also appreciated the '80's mixtape soundtrack. 

[snickers]

On 12/19/2018 at 10:26 PM, dkb said:

I'm going to assume the previous movies are not as good, with all the stuff that is said about them. If they are like this movie, I'd watch them.

uh no, they are not-the first one i think was the best one of the Bay ones, but some don't even agree with that!

 

I really liked this, it was back to basics, limited robots and limited fight scenes.

 

Bumblebee is the best, and this movie reminds you why, and least you see how he lost his voice.  I liked the Charlie character and her storyline and I hope they continue on with this format if they do more movies.

[benteen]

I thought it was a lot of fun and definitely a saving grace of the Transformers franchise.  Loved the 80s setting even if they did play it up too much, enjoyed the Cybertron stuff and seeing all those Transformers that haven't appeared before and Angela Basset as the evil Decepticon (and laughed at that Cena lined that was brought up).  Hailee Steinfeld is a terrific actor (something obvious since True Grit) and is a hell of a lot better lead for this franchise than he-who-shall-not-be-named ever was.

Nice Transformers The Animated Movie easter egg too.

[Raja]

I think that with this Section 7 Agent role Cena just might make it post WWE. Maybe not to Arnold's or The Rock's level but certainly a chance to match Bautista 

[Wynterwolf]

I looooved this.  I haven't laughed this hard in a movie in a long time.  I enjoyed parts of the first Transformers movie, but I bailed after the second one and none of the subsequent movies even remotely tempted me, but since reviews on this were really good we decided to take a chance and I'm so glad we did.  This was utterly delightful.  

[jcin617]

I loved this movie!  I was left scratching my head a bit at the continuity in the final scenes.   Prime is shown congratulating Bee on protecting Earth as more Autobots arrive, but Prime didn't arrive (and didn't look anything like he did in this movie) until Bee signaled him in the first movie.     I'll hand-wave it somehow because otherwise the movie was really good.

[Captain Carrot]

4 hours ago, jcin617 said:

I loved this movie!  I was left scratching my head a bit at the continuity in the final scenes.   Prime is shown congratulating Bee on protecting Earth as more Autobots arrive, but Prime didn't arrive (and didn't look anything like he did in this movie) until Bee signaled him in the first movie.     I'll hand-wave it somehow because otherwise the movie was really good.

The rumor is that, depending on the box office, Bumblebee is either a prequel to the first Bay film, or a reboot of the franchise. Personally I got the feeling that the director and writer were treating it as a reboot with just enough continuity to the Bay films to keep the studio happy.

I have to say that I was very happy with this movie, and it's the one I was hoping to get when the first Transformer movie was announced. (I really liked the call back to the animated movie). I saw a review on Youtube that made two comments I have to agree with. The first is that it was nice to see a transformers movie made by people that liked the franchise. The second was that it was hard to determine why I liked it as much as I did. Is it because it really that good, or is it a slightly above average movie that is great in comparison to the Bay films.

 

Edited December 28, 2018 by Captain Carrot

[Wynterwolf]

6 minutes ago, Captain Carrot said:

The second was that it was hard to determine why I liked it as much as I did. Is it because it really that good, or is it a slightly above average movie that is great in comparison to the Bay films.

That's a really good question.  I think for me, because I didn't have much attachment to/knowledge of the source material, and it was easy for me to walk away from the Bay movies when they sucked, it was that this movie felt like it was made with joy and it came through on screen.  I would applaud the writer/director combo most for that, and whoever made the casting choices.  The actors were great, but they definitely had fun, very heart-felt but not sappy material to work with.  

[Captain Carrot]

21 minutes ago, Wynterwolf said:

That's a really good question.  I think for me, because I didn't have much attachment to/knowledge of the source material, and it was easy for me to walk away from the Bay movies when they sucked, it was that this movie felt like it was made with joy and it came through on screen. 

As someone with a lot of attachment to the source material, I have to agree with you 100%. The first Bay film was deeply flawed, but showed some promise. Instead the sequel doubled down on everything wrong with the first movie. I walked away after that, and left Transformers to my childhood memories. I was deeply skeptical of this movie, but watched it due to word of mouth. The difference was between night and day. I'm still having an internal debate on how good I think Bumblebee is, but not on whether or not it's a good movie.

I'm back in if this is a reboot of the franchise.

[Wynterwolf]

4 minutes ago, Captain Carrot said:

I'm back in if this is a reboot of the franchise.

**nods**  Me too. 

[benteen]

I enjoyed the first Transformers movie but that second one...oof.  It was a 2 1/2 hour movie that felt like it was 3 1/2 hours.  When you think it's finally ended, you realize that a 45-minute closing sequence is coming up.  Just awful. 

If Bumblebee is a reboot, I will definitely consider giving this franchise another chance.

Edited December 28, 2018 by benteen

[Danny Franks]

So I've just seen this movie. A bit late, but it was barely on my radar, thanks to the hideous mess that Michael Bay made of the franchise. I heard this was supposed to be a real change of pace, and so it proved to be.

I guess it was obvious from the opening scenes, where we saw the war on Cybertron and (wonder of wonders!) I actually recognised most of the robots. There's Ratchet! And Soundwave! Shockwave looks just like he should too! They're not all various shades of grey and silver.

From the art design and character designs of that first part, it was clear that this was made by fans of the Transformers cartoon. Personally, I was more into the comics, and felt that the better stories were always told there, but the character designs were the same.

This was much more fun than anything Bay did. Hailee Stanfield was okay, John Cena was ridiculous, as he should be, and the robot fights actually worked, because each one was visually different.

I don't know if any sequels will come from this, but if they do, I'll be more eager to see them.

[VCRTracking]

The opening scene on Cybertron is legit better than ANY of the previous Bay directed Transformers movies. It made me feel like a kid again.