On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee the Autobot seeks refuge in a junkyard in a small California beach town. Charlie, on the brink of turning 18 years old and trying to find her place in the world, soon discovers the battle-scarred and broken Bumblebee. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns that this is no ordinary yellow Volkswagen.
Before I start with the review I'd like to say a happy new year to you all, hopefully 2019 will bring us lots of great new films for us to watch! Today's review is for Bumblebee, the latest film that is out in the transformers franchise. Bumblebee tells the story of a connection between a teenage girl and a Autobot transformer, sharing laughs, sadness and plenty of excitement. What's interesting about this film is the new perspective that it shows towards the franchise, not just lots of fighting but actually giving new audiences into the franchise an idea behind these characters. The main question though is, is this film a well connected masterpiece or does it ring up a critical error? Here are my thoughts.
The start of a film is always crucial to how it plays out and its success, this film did that really nicely. Not only were we thrown into an intense and engaging battle at the start but the battle scene on the foreign planet also gave us the opportunity to meet Bumblebee in his native environment. Then by contrasting it to Earth, it started off the film really nicely and gave us a great perspective of the different types of characters that would be involved. I also liked how the whole of the film was really fast paced, right from the beginning too, there seemed to always be something relevant or important happening which meant that the film started in an interesting and exciting way and it kept these themes right throughout the whole film. The ways in which we were introduced to the characters on Earth were also really engaging too, they provided us with a basic interpretation of who they were, their relevance and the different types of relationships that they all shared together which was well executed by showing us the characters in a wide variety of different environments. The introduction of the yellow beetle was also clearly an important turning point in the life of Charlie and this was relayed to the audience really nicely, I constantly felt like she went from zero to hero in her own way and the ways in which other characters engaged with her really got us on her side and rooting for her to succeed the whole way through. Speaking of this, I thought that the characters and acting in this film were done really well, they provided a wide range of different types of character that seemed to round off the film very nicely which I liked and definitely contributed to the overall film. The characters relationships with not only each other but also with the Autobots was really interesting and engaging to watch, as we were shown a really personal perception from Charlie as to who they were and their purpose which just made scenes with them and humans in exciting and really purposeful. There was also a great level of character engagement with the audience too which had the effect of not only entertaining us but also making the characters multi dimensional in order to create a set of realistic and purposeful characters and these really made the film enjoyable. This balance of humour (which I must add was actually funny and good humoured), action scenes as well as emotional scenes was perfectly achieved, there were fun and exciting scenes such as the fights and escapes but also seeing the characters emotional gave them a really personal and down to Earth appeal too which I liked.
As previously mentioned, there was a lot going on but I don't think that this made the plot difficult to interpret at all really, not only was it really easy and straightforward to follow but it was also full of emotions and excitement which meant that most audiences found this film really enjoyable and exciting. The plot was simply laid out and there were clear outlines for it right from the very beginning, so there was no guesswork involved as to what was going on or why it was happening which I liked, one of the best elements of this film for me though was that the film had a real meaning and purpose, for example the fight scenes were developed and built up to in a way that gave them intensity and passion because we as the audience knew the cost of what they were fighting for and the pressures they faced. I also liked the symbolic ending too, with Charlie diving into the water and fixing her Dad's car in the workshop and being able to drive it. These scenes were satisfying because we had seen the emotional impact they previously had, this was a really strong part of the film, the way scenes had a purpose and a really strong emotional attachment which really made the scenes, the plot and the film gripping, exciting but also purposeful too. I must add as well, the movie works in large part because of the depth of Steinfeld's (Charlie) performance. I haven't seen such a well-realized character in any of the other Transformers movies, this added so much depth and purpose into the film.
Not everything was perfect in this film though, my main issue was that there didn't seem to be enough ambition or emotion in the film, much of what I watched was fairly similar to previous films in that genre and if you like them then this will be great but it just would have been great to see some new things added to really make this film stand out. It was a shame, but this ranged from fairly typical and corny dialogue, to how the plot played out, I was left correctly predicting some of what would happen next (weird flex but ok) and for a film like this, it really should be full of surprises and exciting twists and turns but that just wasn't apparent here. The film didn't also offer much context into decisions, I feel that a few decisions and key events in the film were done mainly without much context and if there was, it wasn't explained to us well which had the impact of a few scenes being a little bit confusing but thankfully I didn't find it too bad.
There was a general vibe in this film of uncertainty too, many scenes felt like they were held back, for example when Charlie was teased about her Dad it made the audience angry but there wasn't much of a reaction from Charlie which was a little uncertain and confusing too.
Overall, I would give this film an 8.5. I thought that it was really good, it was really entertaining, the plot and characters were portrayed and relayed to us very nicely and the film just had a great sense of purpose which was made through the personal encounters that we had with the film. Sure there were a few problems and I feel that the film was held back a little, but it doesn't mean that this isn't a great film at all. I would recommend this film to all audiences, whether you're a petrol head in it just for the cool retro cars, or a huge transformers fan to just a general film fan, you're sure to find something in this film that you will enjoy.
Thank you for reading my review, I hope you have an awesome day!
And if you've got this far then you must have read the whole review (thanks), or you've just scrolled through because it was boring (ouch, that hurt) but I am thinking of doing a giveaway to celebrate a great year of 2018! It will probably be a DVD from the year, if you're interested in this then please use the get in contact button to suggest a DVD and I'll get back to you with more information! Thanks :)
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