Bumblebee Is Not Just A Good Transformers Movie, It's A Good Movie Movie

First off, I love Michael Bay.  I can't quit him.  I've seen all of his movies, and I love most of them.  I've seen 4 out of the 5 Transformers movies at the midnight screening on opening night.  I realize his severe limitations as a filmmaker, but the man is a visual genius.  He can craft an action sequence like no one else.  That being said, the last few Transformers movies have been all out piles of robotic crap.  For a director who normally sees plot as a means to get to the next action sequence, the last few of these had even less of anything remotely resembling a cohesive story.  Bay also took the lore and backstory of the Robots In Disguise to even loonier heights.  Each film tried to establish a different backstory for the Autobots and Decepticons to diminishing returns.  Needless to say, it was time for Michael Bay to move on.

Enter Travis Knight (Kubo And The Two Strings).  He wisely strips down all of the Michael Bay nonsense and focuses the film on a single robot, the highly popular Bumblebee.  And it worked!  I can't believe it, but Bumblebee is not only a great Transformers movie, but it's also a great movie movie.  It's full of heart and humor, while still existing as a top notch action film.

Bumblebee starts on Cybertron (the robotic home world of the Autobots and Decepticons) as the war is ending.  Bumblebee is jettisoned from his home planet to Earth as a sort of scout for the other Autobots.  However, he is soon caught, had his memory erased and his vocal chords slashed (answering the biggest running bag in Transformers history) and forced to go into hiding on Earth as the famous VW Beetle from the cartoon series.  He is soon discovered by Charlie (played with tomboy piss and vinegar by Hailee Steinfeld), and has to re-learn how to be a transforming robot.

This is where the film earns the majority of its charm points.  It's as if Knight said, "What if Spielberg made one of these?" and just loaded up the film with E.T. charm.  It also works because Knight chose to make his human characters as important to the story as the robot on the poster.  This is very much a 1980s coming of age film that just happens to feature fighting robots from outer space.  Knight takes the time to develop his characters and give them stories that make sense.  You feel for the people as much as the robots that are fighting above them.  John Cena continues his strong film presence in this one as well as a member of a government military agency.

Another thing that I loved about Bumblebee was that it didn't run away from nostalgia like the Bay films did.  Everything in this one felt like a celebration of the original 80s cartoon series (and companion feature film), rather than a re-imagining of it.  They use the original "tranforming" sound effect.  The robots are shown in the forms they took in the cartoon series.  Hell, they used a snipet of the catchy feature film song in this one.  It all worked to make something that all audiences could get behind.  Knight also wisely cuts down the number of robots to only a handful, so you don't have to keep track of a million characters on screen.

There are a few things that don't work in this film (there was a high diving backstory for Steinfeld's character that felt forced), but overall it's a hell of fun ride.  I'm giving Bumblebee 3.5 stars out of 4.  If you're a fan of the original cartoon series, or even someone who has grown tired of the Bayhem of the film series, go check it out.  It tries its best to ground the series in emotion over explosion and mostly succeeds.