Movie Review: The Autobots Return in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
The Autobots are back for the 7th instalment in the Transformers film franchise.
Transformers hit our screens in 2007 with Shia LaBeouf starring as Sam Witwicky, a teenager who gets caught up in a war between two factions of alien robots who can disguise themselves by transforming into everyday machinery on earth, primarily vehicles.
The heroic Autobots take on the villainous Decepticons in the first three films: Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon with Shia LaBeouf taking the lead role for all three movies in 2007, 2009, and 2011 respectively.
In the fourth and fifth films, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Transformers: The Last Knight, released in 2014 and 2017, there is an all new cast with Mark Wahlberg filling the lead role as a struggling inventor, Cade Yeager, who assists the Autobots in their fight against the Dinobots.
The prequel series of the Transformers franchise started in 2018 with the release of the reboot film titled Bumblebee. Set in the 1980s, Charlie Watson played by Hailee Steinfeld befriends an Autobot scout named B-127 who was sent to Earth by Optimus Prime to form a base where they can regroup during the Cybertron Civil War.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts follows on in the prequel series, and the film is set in 1994. Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback take the lead roles as Noah Diaz and Elena Wallace who team up with the Autobots and the Maximals to save Earth against the dark forces of Unicron and his hench-bot Scourge.
The movie follows a similar storyline of the original Transformers where; the human meets the Autobot and is initially freaked out but later become the best of friends, Optimus Prime voiced by 81 year old Peter Cullen narrating and has a powerful closing speech, and the Autobots and humans have to save the world but struggle at the beginning because everyone has to learn to believe in themselves first.
I enjoyed the 1994 setting, mainly because of the soundtrack which included Notorious B.I.G's hit single Hypnotize, the subtle references like the visual of the Nintendo Gameboy and mentions of Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Bros. characters. I was surprised to see the World Trade Centre erect but it kept within the theme.
This particular film doesn't tie in with any of the previous films except when Optimus Prime makes a comment to Bumblebee about befriending a human, which is a reference to his friendship with Charlie in the movie titled Bumblebee which can be seen as a prequel to Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
The storyline although similar to the original was fitting, and the action sequences were really good, and I am looking forward to the next instalment which might be a spin-off with another Hasbro toy action figure - watch Transformers: Rise of the Beasts to find out who (don't get out of your seat before the credits start).
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opens at Ster-Kinekor The Zone @ Rosebank and other theatres nationwide from 9 June 2023.
