By Laura BennettThursday 22 Jun 2023Hope AfternoonsMoviesReading Time: 3 minutes
The Transformers franchise is known for its beefed-up visual effects and Michael Bay’s propensity to blow things up and have his cast coated in Vaseline, but there’s always been a human heart to the movies that Transformers: Rise of the Beasts seems to miss.
Directed by Stephen Caple Jr. (Creed II, The Land) with Michael Bay as one of 15 producers, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts relies on the robots to fuel your interest in the story and uses the humans to punctuate their intergalactic dilemmas instead of guide them.
In this latest release, we’re introduced to a new faction of Transformers – the Maximals – who join with the Autobots to protect Earth from the Decepticons and ultimately get the Transformers back to their home planet.
Set in the 90s, the movie stars Anthony Ramos (In the Heights, Hamilton) as Noah Diaz, an ex-soldier looking for work who gets caught up in the Autobots plan when, in a moment of desperation, he steals a car (aka Transformer named Mirage) to pay for his brother’s medical bills.
Together with aspiring museum curator Elena (Dominique Fishback), Noah uncovers a relic the Maximals need to defend Earth and the group fight to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.
It’s a high-action story, and the cinema experience is overflowing with immersive grand-scale visual and sound effects that bring the robots to life, but in the world of the beasts the humans seem wholly insignificant.
The cinema experience is overflowing with immersive grand-scale visual and sound effects that bring the robots to life, but in the world of the beasts the humans seem wholly insignificant.
Noah’s story should grab you: he’s fought for his country yet can’t get work, he’s dismissed as a person of colour and the American medical system is such that his brother can’t get the care he needs without sending the family into poverty. It’s a far cry from the bumbling Sam Witwicky of 2007’s Transformers who was trying to use Bumble Bee to get a date, but you’re not given enough time – or reason – to invest in Noah’s concerns.
The dynamic between Elena and Noah is less one of friendship, and more that of coworkers who get stuck in the same lift and make small talk until they find a way out: they’re cordial, aware of each other’s wellbeing but only one step up from strangers.
We could read into the passive humanity in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts as a sign of what’s to come in a machine-dominated future. Perhaps we don’t matter as much as we think we do, are we just decorations in someone else’s loungeroom?
Maybe, but that’s a bit dark.
What really seems to be at play here, is a decision to lean into the Transformers as “toys that have come to life”, with sequences that mirror the imagined play and tone of voice of a kid in a playroom bashing around with their world-saving figurines.
For fans of the previous five films (yes, five), Transformers: Rise of the Beasts departs from the style you know and love, but for an emerging teens audience it may be enough to draw them in to the much-loved franchise.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is in cinemas now. Rated M. Parents Guide