Transformed for the better

‘Bumblebee’ brings welcome wit, charm to franchise that had been unwatchable

“Bumblebee” is the latest installment in the “Transformers” series, but fortunately for humankind, it has little in common with its torturously bloated, unwatchable predecessors. This new sci-fi action adventure film explores revolutionary concepts like wit, charm and likable characters — as if the franchise had pleasantly mutated into a robotic version of “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.”

Consider this kinder, gentler “Transformers” project the biggest miracle of the holiday movie season. This is not to say that “Bumblebee” avoids the requisite CGI effects or big explosions — this is a “Transformers” movie, after all — but director Travis Knight uses these tools judiciously and to maximum effect. He centers his film on a touching relationship between angst-ridden teenager Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld, a very welcome presence), who is grieving the loss of her father, and

B-127, a hulking yet sensitive mass of bolts who has come to Earth on a mission to help save his fellow Autobots.

Knight, wisely keeping the easy-to-follow exposition to a minimum, begins with a battle between Autobots and their enemies, the Decepticons, on the planet Cybertron. In short order, B-127 is dispatched to Earth, but as soon as he lands in a forest, military types and evil Decepticons are there to chase him down. Fortunately, B-127 can morph quickly into a car, and he manages to escape as a yellow Volkswagen Beetle, though his memory and general physical condition are in such disrepair that he ends up in a junkyard, unable to move.

That changes when the moribund B-127 catches the eye of the mechanically talented Charlie, who wants to

Little does this misfit know that her car-repair wizardry will land her a new, extraterrestrial friend and place her in the center of a battle.

restore the VW so she can get around in her small Northern California beach town and keep her mind off her family issues.

Little does this misfit know, though, that her carrepair wizardry will land her a new, extraterrestrial friend and place her in the center of a battle where — it goes without saying — the very future of the world will be at stake.

“Bumblebee,” which takes place in the 1980s and uses plenty of songs from the era, benefits from having a scrappy young woman as a protagonist, not to mention welcome doses of humor. The script stays on safe, formulaic ground, but it’s effective — and somehow breathes new life into a franchise that had become a junk heap.

David Lewis is a Bay Area freelance writer.

Above and left: Hailee Steinfeld with her newfound friend, the hulking mass of bolts called B-127, in “Bumblebee,” the latest “Transformers” movie.To watch a trailer, go to date book.sfchronicle .com.

Paramount Pictures John Cena as Agent Burns with B-127 in “Bumblebee,” an enormous — not to say hulking — improvement over previous Transformers movies.