Bumblebee (2018) [Movie Review]
Starring
Hailee Steinfeld – Charlie
Jorge Lendeborg Jr. – Memo
John Cena – Agent Burns
Summary
“On the run in the year of 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie, on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken.”
Imdb.com
Review
I haven’t been to the movie theatre in ages and so my mom kicked my father and I out yesterday to go see a movie, and this was the choice! As a massive Transformers fan, I have been really excited for this movie since the teaser trailer came out a while ago! I didn’t grow up with the original TV show, which was from the 80’s, but after I saw the first Transformers movie so many years back, I dipped into the original show and it is so cute. It’s just such a classic – that an the original G.I. Joe.
My first draw to this movie was the fact that it was harping back to the original show and man, was it!
So like the original TV show!
Instead of the Transformers being completely realistic in the way that the new ones are, these ones really harped back to the original Autobots and Decepticons, with Optimus Prime being his well known square self and even some of the classic bad guys like Soundwave and Cassettes.
Really did only focus on Bumblebee.
As you can tell with the title, this movie was all going to be about Bee, which was good but I also wanted more. With the opening scene on Cybertron and seeing all of the original Transformers, I wanted to see more of them, but sadly they were not a big part in the movie. So I really hope that they make some more in a similar style to this one, going back to the original Transformers design, because I think that it could be so well done! Don’t get me wrong, I love the new designs in the movies, but this was just something special.
Simple story and not too over the top with the action.
With some of the newer TF movies, like The Last Knight, it’s action from the moment the movie starts all the way to the end. This one had so much more going on. You really saw a beautiful connection between Charlie and Bee, which was so wonderful. Bee has always been this sweet autobot who is also a badass, but in this one, you really understood the connection possible between the Autobots and Humans which you never got from the other movies. Of course you had the traditional epic ‘bot fight scenes, but it wasn’t as much non-stop action as before as there was a deeper story here.
A few continuity issues – I really hope they clarify!
As was stated in The Last Knight, the Autobots supposedly first came to Earth at the time of Merlin, the Wizard, and before then. Then Bumblebee came to earth during WWI, but in this movie it was supposedly his first time coming to earth in 1987. So it seems to be that timelines aren’t lining up which has been bothering me. It can be fixed, such as sending the Autobots away, like they came and left and then returned. But that was a big stand out to me. Also, not exactly continuity, but it was a little unclear that Bee had lost his memory in this movie because I was confused why he wasn’t doing his job and suddenly it became clear he had no memory. Maybe I wasn’t pay attention well enough but that confused me just a little.
Overall, one of the best Transformers movies.
Honestly I adored this movie. It was so well done visually, the music was really good too. It was such a throwback to the 80’s and 90’s with the time period and just so well done. It was so like the original show which I really liked. The animations weren’t perfect in the sense that they weren’t realistically melded into the world, especially seen with the opening scenes on Cybertron, but it was done in this ‘cartoon’ kind of style. It was realistic with it paying homage to the old show, which I really did adore.
This one gets 4/5 teacups.
