Hey, so it turns out that the problem with Transformers movies all this time hasn’t been the fact that they are based on a cartoon that was created in the 1980s with the purely mercenary motive of selling more toys, which everyone should have seen coming after restrictions were lifted from American broadcasters that had previously limited how they could market stuff to children. (Of course, neoliberal profit-first corporatism directing children’s entertainment was and remains a problem.) The problem has been — but we knew this already — that Michael Bay, who loves explosions more than people or story or meaning or anything, has been the one giving us Transformers movies.
Keep Bay away from the director’s chair of a Transformers movie (he’s a producer here, but you’d hardly know it), and this is what happens: We get a cute, funny, heartfelt throwback that is nostalgic without being mindlessly retro, an action-adventure buddy dramedy that offers agreeable reminders of E.T. and other 80s kiddie sci-fi. You know, the 80s kiddie sci-fi that told a cool, interesting story first, and then sold us lots of crappy plastic toys that we played with for a couple of days before we got bored with them, in the proper way of things.
With Bumblebee, we have gone back to the 1980s not just in spirit but in cinematic time: it’s 1987 here; this is a prequel to all the previous Transformers flicks, not that the plots or characters of any of them were demanding deeper backgrounding. After a major defeat for the “Autobot resistance” in their war against the evil Decepticons, scout Autobot B-127 (the voice of Dylan O’Brien: Maze Runner: The Death Cure, American Assassin) is sent ahead to Earth by Optimus Prime (the voice of Peter Cullen: Treasure Planet) to prepare a new base for the Autobots. Now, I am not deeply steeped in the Transformers mythology, but I feel like this could a problem, because isn’t Optimus Prime supposed to be a great hero not only to the Autobots but for humans as well? And yet with this move, the big OP dumps Earth right in the shit, painting a target on our planet and on humanity for the Decepticons to come and use our world as a battleground. (We see in the opening sequence of that defeat how destructive Transformer warfare is.) OP does tell B-127 to protect the people of Earth, but c’mon: Transformers don’t need a breathable atmosphere or blue skies or anything like that. OP could have sent B-127 to an uninhabited solar system where no innocent civilizations would be threatened. (This also retroactively renders a Transformer connection to Earth that is revealed in the first Transformers movie, in 2007, a ridiculous coincidence. In all the enormous universe, how do the Transformers keep ending up on our little speck of it?) I mean, in his orders to B-127, Optimus Prime says something like, “If the Decepticons find Earth, all is lost.” Gee, thanks, buddy.
Anyway, of course things don’t go well for B-127, who ends up running away from Earth authorities who then unwittingly team up with some Decepticon baddies (the voices of Angela Bassett [Mission: Impossible – Fallout, Black Panther] and Justin Theroux [Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Girl on the Train]!) who have arrived to hunt down the “criminal.” It doesn’t take much time or effort for the Decepticons to track B-127 to Earth. I’m beginning to wonder about the military wisdom or even basic survival instincts of the Autobot resistance. Even B-127’s disguise, as a yellow Volkswagen bug, is almost instantly shattered by 18-year-old Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Pitch Perfect 3), who finds him in a junkyard, uncovers his secret, names him Bumblebee — B-127 was damaged and cannot speak to tell her his name — and makes him her new best friend, the perfect companion for a lonely misfit like her.
Honestly, though: forget about all the plot holes and inconsistencies. Bumblebee is a sweet, gentle girl-and-her-alien-robot-car lark that hits all the right notes of human-alien (and organic-metallic) friendships. I despair at yet another female character who isn’t stereotypically feminine — Charlie is into cars, is a good mechanic, and rolls her eyes when her stepfather tells her she should “smile more” — whom The Movies cannot seem to avoid giving a boy’s name: Charlie? really? But she’s cool and Steinfeld is terrific… which is, perhaps, the result of having a female screenwriter, Christina Hodson (Unforgettable), who finds just the right balance between Charlie’s teenage despair and her smart awareness of just how the cards are stacked against her. There’s stuff here that it’s difficult to imagine a male screenwriter would have come up with… like how Charlie deals with the crush her cute, shy neighbor Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.: Love, Simon, Spider-Man: Homecoming) has on her.
Charlie even gets to save the planet, because naturally there will be robot battles with the fate of planet Earth in the balance in which Charlie has a small yet vital part to play. The battles aren’t the focus of the movie, and the robot-fighting is not fetishized, because, as mentioned, this isn’t a Michael Bay movie. It’s from director Travis Knight, his second film — and first live-action one — after his charming animated debut, Kubo and the Two Strings. (He doesn’t even fetishize the relationship Charlie has with Bumblebee, who is coded male and is cute and shy like Memo. I dread to think what Bay would have done with this, when he had Megan Fox humping machines that weren’t even sentient.)
All is not perfect here: the flick is a bit too long, and could have done with some judicious trimming. It can’t quite make the best use of John Cena (Blockers, Ferdinand) as the 80s-sci-fi-essential government agent who’s after the alien visitor; he has one great line, but the movie misses tapping into the unexpected vulnerability and wonderful comic charisma he has been demonstrating onscreen a lot lately. On the other hand, there’s a ton of great 80s pop and rock dropped in, just because the movie can. Overall, it’s a win.
see also:
• Transformers (review)
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (review)
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon (review)
• Transformers: Age of Extinction movie review: Everyday Bayism
Just wanna mention that hearing Michael Bay was NOT the director gave me more hope than finding out Spider-Ham was going to be in the Spider-Verse movie. :)
Seriously, Bay didn’t seem to get the style of Transformers right. His bots were all razor-bladed, bits-and-pieces piles of junk that barely looked like the vehicles or devices they were transforming into. When I saw the full trailer for BB a month or two ago, seeing that they were using the Classic Generation 1 robot shapes, that was as big a sign that the people making this movie were going to do it right than anything else.
P.S. not sure about this, but I remember reading ages ago that there was a trend in 80s movies to have women/girls named with boy names, like Max and Willie and Joey, so naming a teen girl Charlie would actually be appropriate for a 80s-based prequel.
Depends on what you consider a “boy’s name.” I currently work at the same location as two teen-aged women. One is named Ashley — as in Ashley Wilkes; the other one is named Ashton — as in Ashton Kutcher. I don’t know what exactly inspired their parents to give them those names but it certainly indicates that giving girls a “boy’s name” wasn’t a trend that ended with the 1980s.
Charlie could be a nickname for the girl’s name Charlotte.
True.
THAT’S IT! Now I remember where it’s from.
The movie Top Gun. Kelly McGinniss’ character is nicknamed Charlie, short for Charlotte, because it throws off the gender assumptions of Maverick that the instructor Charlie was a guy.
male names seem to be fluid. as you point out, Ashley was a man’s name in the 1930s (or 1860s to be more exact); and i knew an adult man (born in the 1930s) named Leslie. no boy would be named either Ashley or Leslie today; instead in the Great Name Shift of the 60s and 70s, they became girl names… it never seems to go the other way. one doesn’t see men named Hortense or Audrey.
I was curious and did some Googling — there HAVE been men with names like Dana (Carvey), Carol (Reed), Evelyn (Waugh), Abbie (Hoffman), Stacy (Keach), Lindsay (Buckingham), Courtney (Vance). There’s a male soccer player named Ashley Cole.
There’s a traceable phenomenon that happens when parents start giving their daughters names previously given only to boys: parents then stop giving them to boys. Vivian, Evelyn, Ashley, Taylor, Robin (which is still given to boys, but very few), and more recently Jordan and Morgan. It drives me nuts when parents say they want to give their daughter a “strong” name and interpret that as a masculine name. My daughter’s name is very much a girls’ name, and it’s very strong.
It happens with colors, too. Pale green used to be coded more or less neutrally, and now it’s considered feminine. Look in the toddler clothing section of Target sometime: the boys’ clothes are depressing. Dark blues and grays, MAYBE some red. We don’t really allow boys color until they’re safely coded as masculine in business suits. Then they can wear pink shirts.
It happens with jobs, too. Once a career that was considered suitable for men is taken over by women (often because its level of prestige and pay drops), men don’t go back to it (see: secretarial work). And vice versa (see: computing jobs).
There are endless examples in our culture of how girls and women and everything associated with girls and women are simply not valued as much as men.
Also this: “Crossdressing.” Why is it considered weird and risible that a man might want to dress in clothing coded feminine but not the other way around? Why is Annie Hall a fashion icon but Mark Hogancamp is beaten nearly to death for merely *mentioning* being a crossdresser?
The answer is this: What man would want to be a woman, and throw away all his privilege and power? But *of course* a woman would want to appropriate some of that power and privilege — that’s just natural.
*nods* I talk about this in my classes. I used to teach a gender paper, and when I introduced it, I would wear one of my husband’s dress shirts, tie, and suit vest with a skirt, and we’d talk about the disparity there. So many of the things that box men into a narrow view of masculinity comes down to, “being like a man is good, and being like a woman is bad.”
Was recently reading an interview with Samin Nosrat, commenting about this in the restaurant industry:
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/14/676694693/salt-fat-acid-heat-star-samin-nosrat-wants-to-burn-it-all-down
Some bits in the trailers remind me of “Big Hero 6” in terms of Charlie’s relationship with Bee. Is there more of that kind of humor in the full film?
This isn’t as good a movie as *Big Hero 6,* but that’s a fair comparison. Yes, there’s some more similar humor.
“Slugbug Yellow”
Literal LOL. Well played.
I am so happy to see that this movie turned out to actually be good. I had zero expectations for is based on all the others.
Not knowing anything about the actress, I thought she was 13 or something based on the trailer.
And, yes, the whole Charlie thing irks me. Because a girl/woman named Vanessa or Deb can’t like cars and such. Ugh.
Still not sure if I’ll see this in a theater, but I will see it.
Well, there’s always the example of Mona Lisa Vito.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nGQLQF1b6I
Yes, I thought the trailer was trying to drag in the robot beat-’em-up fans and it certainly managed to put me off; I’d probably never have bothered to take a look without this review.
If you’re a fan of the 80s animated movie, you might appreciate seeing the Cybertron opening sequence on the big screen.
I loved/love the heck out of the original animated film.
Sadly, it looks like I wont be seeing this in a theater, since my movie companions don’t have interest. And, no, I wont go by myself. We had that convo already.
It’s a new year, MarkyD! Try something new! :-)
Steinfeld is fantastic in this – I teared up a couple times solely because of the desperation in her hugs. The opening scene on Cybertron is ripped straight from the first episode of the G1 pilot miniseries, which is one of my favorite episodes, so it had me at hello. All the details on Cybertron are perfect including the voices (a shame Starscream doesn’t show up – they should have found a Chris Latta impersonator) and the inexplicable appearance of Soundwave (he looks like he has a giant cassette recorder in his chest, but cassettes don’t exist on Cybertron, and none of the robots have been to Earth yet).
The rest of the movie is basically ET + The Iron Giant with lots of 80’s music (some predictable choices, some inspired), but hey if you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best. I agree that the pacing gets flabby at the end. There’s also an unintentionally hilarious scene involving water that makes absolutely no sense. I loved that the finale is a direct counterpoint to the typical “guy gets the girl” coda – as MA says in the review, this is what happens when women write screenplays – girls start to behave like actual human beings instead of plot devices.
There’s plenty of fanservice for fans of the original animated movie, although the transformers still don’t have very distinct personalities. Unlike the Bay films, the plot is simple, the characters are sympathetic (Pamela Adlon reminds me of a young Catherine Keener as Steinfeld’s mom), and the action choreography is coherent and trackable from shot to shot. Angela Bassett makes a surprisingly intimidating Decepticon. In fact, all of the acting is effective except for the performance of one man…
AND HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA!!!!
Doo doodoo doooooo… Seriously though, his acting is terrible. He’s great in comedies, but watching him try to authentically emote is painful. There’s no fire in his eyes even when he has just narrowly avoided death by explosion and flames are literally in front of his eyes. His poor showing aside, this is a solid film. It’s super cool that there are two big budget kids’ action movies out centered around an independent teenage girl and a latino African American boy, and Steinfeld is great in both of them. Hopefully, filmmakers will continue this trend of taking a classic movie, thoughtfully gender/race-swapping the lead role, and letting a woman write the script. It’s a winning formula so far.
After thinking a little bit more, I realize calling this E.T. + The Iron Giant isn’t entirely fair or comprehensive. Those are the two largest influences, but the beginning also tosses in a little Sixteen Candles and one heartwarming gift scene inspired by The Karate Kid. I’m sure there are other references too that I missed, so it’s a more skillful blending of classic 80’s movies and settings than I first gave it credit for (that silly water scene is really forced though). The climb during the climax even has a little Back to the Future flavour. Nice work, Christina Hodson, now if you could just convince Warner Bros, to put Oracle back into Birds of Prey.
Okay, just saw it this morning.
THIS is what the first movie should have been.
Although I feel they underused Cena’s character there are moments where he’s too hard-assed to be considered a reasonable figure, even though he IS the only military guy to be wary of the Decepticons (“C’mon, it’s in their NAME!” he tells the general). There could have been a scene or two extra to show some more depth there, an awareness that some of the things he’s doing is wrong (much how Coulson played it in Thor).
Also, how the hell did Charlie make it back home from San Francisco at the end? She walk?!?! /headdesk
– Spoilers – Saw this over the holidays and really liked it. Sure, there are some pretty glaring plot holes — including: (1) Why does Bumblebee need to be sent to Earth in advance in the first place? He doesn’t actually seem to be doing any “preparing” for the rest of the Autobots to arrive; is he supposed to be looking for apartments, or something? (2) Why does “B-127” not have a name already, like Optimus Prime or Cliffjumper or all the other robots in the film who didn’t need to be renamed by human beings? Maybe Charlie still could have renamed him Bumblebee (assuming there were no such things as bees on Cybertron), but he could’ve already had a usable Autobot name before then. And (3) so Bee turns into a Camaro, leaves Charlie, and spends… TWENTY YEARS doing nothing until he winds up in another junkyard to be discovered by Shia Labeouiouf? And the other Autobots take that long to arrive? Or is this basically a reboot that has no connections to the original Bay films? (Which I’d be perfectly happy with. Ecstatic, even.)
But Hailee Steinfeld is excellent, and the girl-and-her-robot story is charming and refreshing and long overdue, and the soundtrack kicks ass (they even found a way to use Stan Bush’s “The Touch,” hooray!), and the robots all have the coherent, uncluttered G1-inspired designs the fans had wanted to begin with. Outside of adapting the animated 80s movie, this was as close to an ideal Transformers film as I could’ve hoped for. I wouldn’t mind more like this.
She’s also working on Birds of Prey and Batgirl, so I’m looking forward to those. Although you didn’t like her work on Unforgettable, so maybe I should hope those films turn out more like Bumblebee and less like her older work.
Well, the Bayformers movies have pointed and laughed at continuity worse than Doctor Who, so I don’t think there’s going to be an answer to 1 and 3. I mean, BumbleBee arriving on Earth in 1987 all but directly contradicts BumbleBee-vs-Nazis shown in The Last Knight.
Whether this gets treated as a soft reboot, a hard reboot, a spin-off, or a “what if” story in the greater Paramount Transformers franchise will depend greatly on how well it does financially (which as of this comment, isn’t looking spectacular, though it could still do better than Last Knight, at least).
I’m amazed/bummed at the low performance of this movie. It’s BY FAR the highest rated of all of them, and yet is making far less money. I don’t think they’ve done a good job, marketing-wise, of differentiating it from the previous movies. Do people think this is just another Bay flik? Admittedly, I did before the reviews came out.
As weird as it sounds, I think naming it after Bumblebee might not be helping. I’m a gardener. I love the heck out of Bumblebees, but the name still sounds less than bad-ass, ya know? My 17 year old son doesn’t want to go see a movie called Bumblebee.
I have a feeling if they did an Optimus Prime movie in a similar vein it would be doing much better. Just my strange way of thinking.
Not sure you can legit complain about how poorly a movie is doing if you simply will not pay to see it even though you really want to see and have access to it. :-)
I disagree. There are all sorts of movies, shows, music, books, etc. that i can’t or wont see or read or hear right away that I hope succeed. Its a simple sentiment. If something is genuinely good, I want it to do well. Regardless of my own opinion of it.
Too many awful things are celebrated and rewarded so I wish for more of the opposite. Simple as that.
You’re entitled to your sentiments and wishes, but there’s still a disconnect. It’s like saying you think someone’s a great candidate and hope they win office, but you don’t bother to vote for them; and then you’re “amazed/bummed” that they lost the election. Or it’s like saying you think MaryAnn’s writing is awesome and you really hope she makes a decent living from her subscribers, without subscribing yourself; and then you’re “amazed/bummed” that she’s financially struggling.
Creative workers need their supporters to actually support them; otherwise it’s just words. “Put your money where your mouth is” and all that. Granted, most of us don’t have enough money to support EVERYTHING we like — but when something we like fails and we didn’t support it, we shouldn’t act surprised, and should be honest enough to admit we’re part of the reason it failed.
Bumblebee is making less money because a lot of people aren’t paying to see it in theaters. You’re one of those people. Not a judgment, just a fact. But when you THEN say you want it to succeed and you’re surprised it’s not doing better, and you wish for good things to be rewarded rather than awful things, maybe keep in mind that if you REALLY mean that, you can do more than just wish. :-)
Dude, I’m really not THAT invested. I’ve never seen a single transformers movie in a theater. None seemed worth it, and upon viewing at home, that was a smart decision. This one seems to have turned that around, but people seem to paying less attention. That’s really my point in expressing my thoughts. I just wondered how many people realize the difference between this and past movies. It wasn’t supposed to be about me.
And you folks know I simply don’t go to movies myself. I am one of many people like this. I did it once with Dark Knight. It’s not logical, but its the way I am. I get major anxiety over it
I have no friends. I go with either my wife, or my son. My son is getting older now, so he’s gotten more selective. He used to go see anything with me. Oh well. It was inevitable.
Can we end this now? Its not that big a deal. Heck, the movie is holding decently, and hasn’t done too bad. I’ll see it i a few months.
I knew you prefer not to see movies alone, but I didn’t realize it was a cause of actual anxiety. I’m sorry for making you uncomfortable about it.
I can definitely relate to not being able to take my kid to see everything anymore. :-)