2007’s Transformers was a wildly entertaining live action adaption of the classic 1980’s cartoon. It left moviegoers excited and hopeful Transformers could be the next big franchise. Unfortunately, the sequels ranged from “meh” to “bad” to one of the films being 2hrs 30 minutes of product placement.

2018’s Bumblebee did its best to resurrect the franchise. A film set in the 80’s delivered a cool new story, a fun performance by Hailee Steinfeld, a badass 80’s soundtrack, and an unbelievable opening scene on Cybertron.

Steven Caple Jr’s (The Land, Creed II) Transformers: Rise of the Beasts attempts to capture the same magic that made Bumblebee a fan favorite. The film takes place in New York City during the 90’s. The story follows the Maximals, a group of beast-robots, who are on the run from Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo) and the Terrorcons lead by Scourge (voiced by Peter Dinklage). The Terrorcons and Unicron are looking for the Transwarp Key – technology that will open portals and allow Unicron to travel through space and time to devour planets.

The Maximals, lead by Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman); flee to Earth to hide the Transwarp Key from Unicron.

Hundreds of years later, (in 1994) Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is down on his luck and looking to make some money by stealing cars. The Porsche he attempts to steal is Autobot known as Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson). Meanwhile, Elena (Dominique Fishback) is a researcher at a museum and stumbles upon the Transwarp Key. Elena’s discovery alerts The Terrorcons who travel to Earth to capture key.

Like the previous Transformers films, the human characters find themselves in the middle an alien robot fight for the fate of the world/universe/humanity.

As a whole, the film is ok. It’s not bad but nothing we haven’t seen since Michael Bay was blowing up buildings in 2007’s Transformers. The script and plot could be interchangeable with previous Transformers films. At its core, it’s another battle for the fate of the world that involves Transformers trekking around the globe. It’s absent of any new ideas, creativity, or interesting take on the Transformers franchise.

Where Caple Jr’s film shines is the action scenes. The action scenes are vibrant and fun. There’s a nice use of slow-motion and camera angles to show the action without the screen looking like a CGI cluttered mess. The action scenes are fun and amazing to see on the big screen. Sadly, they aren’t that distinguishable from Bumblebee or other films.

There was an opportunity to try something different. The 90’s Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) is not a fan of humans or even working with them. He’s skeptical of trusting anyone that isn’t an Autobot. This could’ve been a really cool arc to watch Prime slowly learn to trust humans and see how he arrived to be the Prime we know and love. Instead, it’s sort of a thing that’s mentioned through dialogue but never fully explored.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is exactly the movie you think it is. It’s fun in spurts but ultimately doesn’t amount to anything. It’s like fast food, the film is fun while you watch but easily forgettable once you’re done. If the studio can find a way to mix Caple Jr’s action with the charm from the Bumblebee script, they may have a foundation to build something interesting. Until then, we’ll be stuck with more rinse-and-repeat robot fights and save the world plots.

Grade: C