‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ Is the Best ‘Transformers’ Movie
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Transformers: Rise of the Beasts triggers a frisson not uncommon to happily mindless franchise movies. It exudes the energy of talented filmmakers trying to wring something creative, unique, or, heaven forbid, human, from a generic template, or trying to sneak just a little bit of flavor into the boxed mix. This palpable effort makes Beasts watchable on a moment-to-moment basis. It has talented actors, Dominique Fishback and Anthony Ramos, doing their best to interact with green-screen concoctions. It has a sense of humor. It has a Nineties hip-hop soundtrack put together by someone who knows and appreciates that music and understands how to utilize it for dramatic effect. In short, it has some of the joy necessary to counteract the paint-by-numbers numbness that often defines these affairs. And that qualifies as a minor victory.
That said, this is still a movie about warring space aliens that morph into high-octane vehicles and utter lines like, “If we are to die, then we will die fighting all as one.” Except this time, they have company in the form of metallic animals holding things down in Peru. Because, well, why not? The franchise started seven movies ago as a big-screen toy advertisement – the toys themselves hit shelves in 1984 – and has continued to carve a blockbusting swath. The films, born as an offshoot of shiny metal baubles, are merchandise more than cinema, and ticket buyers are by now well familiar with the goods they’re purchasing.
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Plot, you say? OK, if you insist. Noah (Ramos) is a Nineties Brooklynite looking after his kid brother and trying to make ends meet. He reluctantly tries to steal a Porsche, which turns out to be Mirage (Pete Davidson, being very Pete Davidson), a wisecracking Transformer who introduces the kid to the big guy, Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, who has made a career on the benevolently growling, baritone role). It seems the pesky planet eater Unicron (Colman Domingo) and his chief minion Scourge (Peter Dinklage) are looking to devour Earth. To do so they need the ancient transwarp key, half of which sits in a museum, under the watchful eye of under-appreciated employee Elena (Fishback). (In a nice nod to film people, the half-key is encased in something that looks a whole lot like The Maltese Falcon). The other half is in Peru, which gives everyone a chance to go to South America and team up with the Maximals, led by Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), a 13-foot mechanical gorilla (shades of the awesomely, famously horrible 1953 B-horror turkey Robot Monster).
Try not to think about it too much. Director Steven Caple Jr., who has done solid work with movies big (Creed II) and small (The Land), actually makes this task pretty easy. The interminable combat scenes aren’t visually incomprehensible. The performances are better than they have any reason to be; there’s something pleasantly jarring about seeing Fishback in such a benign work after witnessing her sociopathic toxic fandom turn in TV’s Swarm. And that soundtrack puts a hop in the movie’s entire step. The Porsche heist scene plays out to Digable Planets’ “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat).” A damaged Bumblebee makes a grand reentrance to LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” (don’t call it a comeback). For a movie that starts and ends in Nineties New York, Rise of the Beasts sounds just about perfect.
Caple and his team understand that, beneath the mythical gobbledygook, these movies are about sensations and nostalgia. Beasts encourages you to let your eyes glaze over through the plot exposition and embrace the visceral nonsense. Beasts is dumber than a box of hammers, but it doesn’t drip with the rote cynicism of, say, Fast X. It doesn’t smirk at you. There’s something almost innocent about it, befitting a movie that counts Steven Spielberg as an executive producer (and that shamelessly shouts out E.T. and the Indiana Jones movies). Beasts puts its audience on cruise control, easy and painless. It makes the toy aisle look pretty good.
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