Bumblebee

• (Stylized as BumbleBee and sometimes marketed as Transformers: Bumblebee)
• Directed by Travis Knight
• December 3, 2018 (Sony Center) / December 21, 2018 (US)
• Based on the Transformers toy line

After coming to Earth, the Autobot Bumblebee finds himself the target of Decepticons sent to track him down.

As soft reboots go, Bumblebee is not a bad one. That is if this is indeed a soft reboot since the Transformers movies have a way of ignoring continuity. Or logic. Or much of anything else in their fictional world.

The story is set in the mid-80s though one could be forgiven for not always remembering it’s the 80s. It can be hard to strike a balance when it comes to reminding the viewer of what era the story is set in without beating them over the head with it. So much looks like it could be from today and then something pops in that clearly belongs to the 80s.

Bumblebee gets paired with Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) whose father has passed and has a rather sizable chip on her shoulder because of that. She’s just angry at the world and her mom for finding new love. She has an admirer who she isn’t completely unaware of the existence of until the narrative forces them to meet yet he treats her like some true love. Can you say cucked?

John Cena as Jack Burns, former U.S Army Colonel and agent of Sector 7 (whatever that is), manages to provide a nice mixture of wit and seriousness in his role. He understands what the material deserves and gives it just that. He’s not going for comedy, but rather light adventure.

The whole of the Decepticon forces are not the threat this time around but rather two named Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux). They are a bit generic as villains and that goes with their generic names. Why not use somebody with some name recognition? We get a great many in the opener that either do not speak or do very little but are ones core fans will recognize.

I like that some of the Transformers designs were more in line with what you might find in G1. I’m not talking just appearance or Soundwave ejecting Ravage but that the designs were less complicated. Detail is a necessity but too much detail can be distracting. And personally I thought some of the characters in Transformers looked like puckering cat butts though things got simplified a bit as the movies went on.

Speaking of simple, the story itself is deeply rooted in the Autobot/Decepticon conflict but it’s not another fate of the world or something left by the Transformers on Earth that they forgot about in the distant past type story. The stakes are high, but mostly just for the characters involved in the story and not the entire planet though the potential of Decepticons coming to Earth is a big deal.

Despite Michael Bay’s producing credit on this film, this is a much better done story than anything he helmed here in the Transformers universe. It’s focused and proceeds intelligently from start to finish even with giant fighting robots. The cast isn’t excessively bloated and a 90-ish minute story is not fluffed into 2 1/2 hours.

This is not great though but better. They try to give Charlie some character growth and it does not really work. It’s almost like the character flipped a coin to come to the decision to be closer to her mother and stepfather. Despite this the movie is good when viewed and good when thought about unlike the last films that were good when watched and bad when remembered.

Ultimately Bumblebee is a fun and superior to its predecessor entry into the Transformers live action film universe. It is accessible to series fans and those watching a Transformers film for the first time.