By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
For over a decade, I was one of the millions of Transformers fans caught up in a sadistic social experiment in which Michael Bay unleashed mindless, over-the-top, insulting, and poorly plotted films to see if we’d keep paying money for our memories of Optimus Prime’s last ride in 1986 to be destroyed, over and over again. Others were stronger than I was, and the films were released to diminishing returns, until finally, someone had the bright idea to make a halfway decent Transformers film.
In 2018, Bumblebee proved that the beat-up Transformers franchise had life in it, and then, in 2023, its sequel, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, did everything a fan could ask for. The damage was already done, and it still flopped. Until now, when it debuted as the number one movie on Netflix, and briefly dethroned KPop Demon Hunters.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts starts like most of the films in the franchise, by focusing on its human characters. This time, Noah (Anthony Ramos) is at least a former military, and Elena (Dominique Fishback) the aspiring archaeologist, isn’t nearly as annoying as Shia LaBeouf’s Sam and Mark Wahlberg’s Cade Yeager.
The pair find themselves on a treasure hunt alongside the Autobots through Peru to stop the Terrorcons from bringing their Master, the planet-devouring Unicron, to Earth. It’s not Shakespeare, it’s not even Drunk Shakespeare, but it’s fun.
Transformers With Robots You Can See
Long gone are the generic chrome and steel designs of the original Bayformers, and in their place are clearly identifiable and colorful giant robots. Including, as the title suggests, the Maximals from the legendary Beast Wars 90’s CGI cartoon that went way harder than an after-school cartoon ever should, with Ron Perlman bringing Optimus Primal to life as had been foretold by fancasting going back to the dawn of AOL. Even the villainous Terrorcons, led by Peter Dinklage’s Scourge, are represented by big, bold, dark colors.
It’s fun and there’s no mention of Romeo and Juliet laws, but Transformers: Rise of the Beasts isn’t a perfect movie. There’s a lot of Pete Davidson as the Autobot Mirage, which is either a good thing or a bad thing. Though the Maximals get more screen time than Age of Extinction’s Dinobots, it doesn’t feel like enough time is spent with them. Then again, the ending reveal kicks off a bold new direction for the entire franchise, one that’s, thankfully, still coming despite the film’s poor box office performance.
Rise Of The Beasts Got Robbed At The Box Office
In a crime only second to the failure of Transformers One, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is the lowest-performing live-action Transformers movie. Yes, it was beaten by The Last Knight’s $600 million worldwide gross after bringing in only $441 million, a decent haul, but an underperformance by the billion-dollar-grossing franchise’s standards.
I grew up with the Transformers and all their ups and downs, including the years of Generation 1 being repackaged for syndication with CGI screen-swapping, and then the trend-chasing shift with Transformers: Armada. I loved both Transformers One and Rise of the Beasts. There’s nothing more I want than for the franchise to dive deep into the lore of the comic books or, at least, after nearly a decade of teasing, give us an all-out brawl with Unicron that ends with Stan Bush’s “The Touch.” Hopefully, the streaming success of Rise of the Beasts on Netflix will help the cowardly executives at Paramount realize the true potential of robots in disguise.
