First reactions say Bumblebee is the great Transformers movie we’ve been wanting
Transformers movies are best known for their crashing, bashing ’bots and embarrassingly bad reviews. Until now.
The latest instalment in the franchise, the origin story Bumblebee, is being welcomed with the sort of critical enthusiasm generally reserved for Star Wars. The prequel, directed by Travis Knight and starring Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena, has 100% positive scores on Rotten Tomatoes from stunned critics.
Descriptions like “lovely”, “appealing”, “agile” and “fresh” are being bandied about.
“Imagine, if you can, a Transformers movie in which the plot is coherent, the robots feel like characters (as opposed to gleaming CG creations), and the action is staged and edited clearly enough to follow,” Variety critic Peter Debruge wrote.
“BUMBLEBEE is good. Which means it is automatically the best TRANSFORMERS movie ever made,” tweeted Justin Chang of The Los Angeles Times with his review.
“After years of cinematic scrap heaps, Bumblebee redeems and reinvigorates the Transformers live-action film franchise with some heartfelt fun,” writes IGN’s Jim Vejvoda, who calls it “the best live-action Transformers movie since the [original] 2007 film”.
Many praised the movie’s girl power. “Fans of the classic Transformers will be thrilled by many of the touches here,” says IndieWire’s Liz Shannon Miller. “But there is also now an entire generation of kids who are going to get to watch a girl drive, with a smile on her face.”
“It’s an effective reimagining that also bears a knowing resemblance to classic youth-oriented films from Bumblebee executive producer Steven Spielberg,” says The Hollywood Reporter’s Justin Lowe.
Whether the spinoff will be successful enough to “reverse [the franchise’s] recent downwards-bound box office remains to be seen,” says Phil Hoad of The Guardian. “But this retooling is snappy and wholesome enough to suggest we might still be watching in our self-driving cars.”
Bumblebee is set in 1987 and revolves around the yellow Volkswagen Beetle/robot of the movie’s title (voiced by Dylan O’Brien of Maze Runner).