Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
Star Rating:
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a standalone sequel to Bumblebee, inspired by the Beast Wars sub-franchise. Set in 1994, two humans must help the Autobots and the Maximals prevent the Terrorcons from getting the Transwarp Key, which can create portals in space that will allow Unicron to travel to Earth to devour it.
This movie is pretty typical of a transformer’s movie. In fact, there were some parts that reminded me of specific scenes from the first Transformers film. Though I wouldn’t say there was anything especially different or unique compared to the other films, I still enjoyed watching it. It’s an entertaining action movie.
As expected, all the transformers are CGI, so there’s a lot of CGI fight scenes between the transformers. But despite there being some noticeable issues with CGI in new movies lately, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts looks great.
The story was easy to follow and fairly simple. There isn’t anything particularly profound about the plot, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some heart. Both the transformers and humans start out wary of each other but learn to trust one another as the story progresses.
The transformers’ personalities were fleshed out and likeable. I especially liked Mirage. I thought he was entertaining and funny, though it did remind me of Bumblebee’s personality. In a way, it felt like his character was replacing Bumblebee’s role, which Bumblebee filled in all the previous films. This isn’t to say that’s bad, though. Bumblebee, while always lovable, has been prominent in most of the movies, and switching it up does add something fresh to this one.
The film shows a different Optimus Prime, one more unsure about humans and hesitant to risk his companions for them. While it might bother some people to see him this way, as he usually cares deeply for both his people and humans, I saw this as just another layer of him. It’s understandable to have different thoughts when he’s barely interacted with humans at this time and his focus is being a leader to the Autobots, not humans.
As always, Peter Cullen does an excellent job voicing Optimus Prime, and the rest of the voice cast did a phenomenal job as well. The acting of the human characters was fine, but I didn’t particularly have any opinion, good or bad, about them as characters.
While I always worry that these Transformer films are going to focus too much on the humans, this one does a fairly good job balancing how much of the story should be about the human characters and how much it should be about the transformers.
Though I do still think there could be a bit more focus on the Transformers during all these Transformers movies. Despite being called Rise of the Beasts, there weren’t a lot of scenes with the Maximals. I think the movie would have been better if the Maxinals were in it more.
As I said earlier, visually, this film looks great. CGI is well done. All scenes were bright and easy to see. And there were some nicely chosen shots during the fighting as well.
I was a little disappointed, though, that Acree’s color appeared more red and less pink. I don’t see why she couldn’t be her usual pink. Who cares if the girl transformer is pink? There’s nothing wrong with the female character being traditionally pink. Pink is a great color. And this is coming from a female, by the way.
Personally, I wasn’t too fond of some of the musical choices. I think the scores were excellent, but rap really isn’t my preferred genre of music. It does work for the setting, given that they chose artists from the 1990s. However, there were times in the movie, particularly in the final battle, that I felt the use of the instrumental score would have hyped me up for the scene more than the rap song they chose. But again, that’s more of a personal preference than real criticism.
I think Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was a decent film. I enjoyed watching it and don’t have any serious criticisms about it. But I will say it doesn’t stand out much to me out of all the Transformers movies. There were a few areas that could have been done better, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t still fun to watch. I still think Transformers fans will like watching it, and I’m sure Beast Wars fans will be happy to see the Maximals.
Check out my other movie reviews.
What do you think of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts? Don’t forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe.