Welcome back to the blog readers. I saw the newest installment in the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and I wanted to share my spoiler-free thoughts on the film. Now it is no secret that I am a huge fan of the Transformers franchise, so much so that I find redeeming qualities in Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. Yeah, I know. Crucify me. So I was pretty excited about this film here.
Directed by Steven Caple Jr. from a script by Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, and Erich and Jon Hoeber, the film stars Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Tobe Nwigwe, and Luna Lauren Vélez; as well as the voices of Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Pete Davidson, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio, David Sobolov, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Colman Domingo, and sees two humans teaming up with multiple groups of Transformers in 1994 to stop the threat of the Terrorcons and their master Unicron.
NOTE: As with my review for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, I will NOT be using spoilers for my review. So if you have not seen the film, you are safe to read on.
As I previously stated, I am biased towards this franchise for whatever reason. Maybe it's because I saw the first one in theaters in 2007 when I was only 9, and had such a deep love for it that I was already predetermined to like all of them. Although looking back now, I would say Revenge of the Fallen was the weakest of the ones released so far. So now that I ran off on a tangent there, let us now center back to the topic at hand. And yes, I did enjoy Rise of the Beasts. A return to form for me, at least.
One thing I will admit holds the Bay films back is their runtimes. Age of Extinction did not need to be 2 hours and 45 minutes, and The Last Knight did not need to top 2 and a half. At a nice and hearty 2 hours and 7 minutes, Rise of the Beasts tells a compelling story, both human and Transformer, and allows for the action and said story to flow but not drag like the Bay films. And I think that is a testament to director Steven Caple Jr. Now 2 for 2 with Creed II (I promise that was not intentional), Caple proves your film does not need to be long to get the point across.
There is one human performance that I want to praise, and that is of Anthony Ramos, who I first laid eyes on with Hamilton (2020) and In the Heights (2021). This kid does not get as much credit as he deserves, because he is a gifted actor. Anyone else in his role would not have been able to embrace the material he was given, but Ramos rises above to give a compelling human performance filled with heart and emotion. Major props to Ramos here for giving my favorite human performance since Shia LaBeouf in the first film. Yeah, I said it. Come at me.
Tied to the performance of Ramos is the voice performance of Pete Davidson as the Autobot Mirage. Mirage is the splitting image of Davidson, who is known for his lighthearted nature and careless attitude (just listen to his phone call to PETA). I feel like the only direction he got from Caple was to just be himself, because he unequivocally was himself. And if you did not know he was in the film before seeing it, you knew as soon as you heard him. He delivers such a performance that makes you feel the bond between Mirage and Ramos's character Noah. I really want to see more of Mirage. P.S. Thank you for not putting the two lead characters together like Bay did.
One final voice performance I want to commend is that of Peter Dinklage. He has already proven himself a phenomenal actor in projects such as X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Game of Thrones (2011-19). Now with Rise of the Beasts, he has proven he can be a phenomenal voice actor as well. He absolutely embraces the evil of his Terrorcon character Scourge and delivers such a dark voice that is equal parts terrifying and unrecognizable. It is a real shame that his character ended up the way he did.
I do have to say that the action is very refreshing. We actually get to see action that has time to breathe. We stay with shots, we can see everything that's going on in a shot, and the humans are involved in the final battle, but here it makes sense as to why they are there. In previous installments, it made no sense as to why certain human characters were there. Here, it does (I will say when I saw the trailer, there was something there that looked like it was stupid, but seeing it in the film made it make sense).
Now before I go, I want to discuss the ending of the film and what this means for the franchise. I WILL BE USING SPOILERS HERE. Noah goes for a job interview and is shocked to realize that the recruiter is aware of his adventures throughout the film. He then tries to recruit Noah into his organization (that which I thought was going to be Sector 7), but they pulled a reverse Uno card on us and revealed the organization to be G.I. JOE. G.I. FUCKING JOE. I cannot believe the bastards are actually crossing over the two franchises. There has been talk about doing it for years, and I never thought that would happen, but apparently miracles do happen. Now we could actually get a good G.I. Joe film now. Here's to only hoping.
In conclusion, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a fun and solid return to form for the franchise, with care put into human characters and stellar voice acting, along with some fresh action for the series. Thank you all for reading, and make sure you get your tickets for Oppenheimer. Please guys, we need this.
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