REVIEW: Bumblebee

Courtesy of Paramount

The first few weeks of a new year are always a mixed bag when it comes to movies. Much like the rest of us, studios are recovering from overdoing it during the holidays. By my count there were more than 30 high-profile releases between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and that’s not even counting a dozen or so more than hit streaming services like Netflix and Hulu.

As such, plenty of interesting stuff barely registered on my radar because I was drowning in awards season DVD screeners and trying to compile my annual Top 10 list. I’m very aware this is a first-world problem of the highest order (“Boo hoo, poor Josh has too many cool movies to watch”); I’m just pointing out that if some movies fall through the cracks for me, I can only imagine what it’s like for the average viewer.

Last January, it happened with The Greatest Showman, Hugh Jackman’s jaw-dropping musical about P.T. Barnum. I missed the press screening because I was out of town and after a disappointing opening weekend, I assumed it would die a quick death and I’d eventually catch it on Blu-ray. Instead, it became a word-of-mouth sensation that broke a ton of records and established a rabid fanbase.

Guess who doesn’t learn from his mistakes? This year’s “Oops, I should’ve seen it earlier” award goes to Bumblebee, the latest entry in the Transformers franchise that wipes the slate clean after too many pointless, incoherent sequels. I zoned out after the third one – I think? Was that the one where McDreamy was a bad guy? – so I assumed this was more of the same.

Turns out that’s not the case at all. Instead, Bumblebee is precisely what a Transformers movie should be. Rather than Michael Bay’s incomprehensible explosion-fests, which care more about CGI overload and poorly designed robots slamming into each other than interesting characters and a compelling story, this prequel goes back to the main reasons kids love these toys so much. It all comes down to personality, imagination and the age-old metaphor of a car as the gateway to freedom.

Set in 1987, the movie finds Bumblebee fleeing his home planet of Cybertron after it’s overrun by their enemies. His leader, Optimus Prime, tasks him with traveling to Earth in order to prepare a place for their rebellion to regroup and come up with a strategy to fight back. (Stay with me… this is just the first 10 minutes. I promise it gets better.)

Once he arrives on our planet, a surprise attack leaves him gravely injured, unable to speak and suffering from catastrophic memory loss. While he recuperates, he takes on the form of an old-school Volkswagen Beetle and hides out in a California junkyard. That’s when things get interesting.

Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld, terrific as always), a girl on the verge of her 18th birthday, is in search of a fixer-upper to help take her mind off the recent death of her father. Of course, she falls in love with the Beetle instantly, only to discover Bumblebee’s secret once she gets him home to her garage. Now she must help him evade a revenge-fueled military operative (the charismatic John Cena, once again proving he’s following Dwayne Johnson’s blueprint to cinematic superstardom) on his trail, as well as the evil aliens who’ve picked up his signal.

The film’s plot is nothing new – it’s The Iron Giant mixed with E.T. However, it’s surprisingly great (seriously, I’ve been thinking about a “Transformers” movie for a week now… how weird is that?) for several reasons. Most importantly, the actors are actually acting instead of just showing up for a paycheck.

I’ve already mentioned that Steinfeld and Cena are fantastic, but there are also stellar supporting performances from Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (last seen being awesome in Love, Simon and Brigsby Bear) and Pamela Adlon (best known as the voice of Bobby on King of the Hill). There’s also some outstanding voice work from Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux, who play villainous alien robots Shatter and Dropkick.

Next, the character design in Bumblebee is far superior to the bland, generic robots that viewers are used to seeing in Bay’s overlong nonsense. You can actually tell the Transformers apart here, as well as pick up on facial expressions and body language. It seems like that would be a mandatory requirement for a movie like this, but the last five installments beg to differ.

Finally, it has a killer soundtrack full of obvious but still awesome needle drops. The music’s so good that I started searching on Apple Music while I was still walking out of the theater. Seriously, any movie that sets a car repair montage to Steve Winwood’s “Higher Love” and makes it work has my respect.

Credit goes to Christina Hodson for her stellar screenplay and director Travis Knight (whose animated film Kubo and the Two Strings is a literal masterpiece) for salvaging a franchise I had completely written off. Turns out that when you combine a compelling story with action sequences you can actually follow, it makes for an entertaining movie. Who knew?

Sadly, the box office returns for Bumblebee indicate that most people share my initial distaste for the Transformers franchise. Don’t make the same mistake I did and be sure to see this one on the big screen. In a few years, people are going to start discovering it on Blu-ray, cable, streaming, etc. and wonder why no one told them how good it was. This is me telling you Bumblebee is good. Really good. Better than it has any right to be. Head to the theater while you’ve still got a chance.

Bumblebee is rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action violence.

Grade: B+