Review: Bumblebee [2018] (Spoiler-Free!)

a (quick!) review by the Azure-Winged Magpie.
(…and no one else right now, but you just wait)!
^{(Thanks to the Crow for his help with the formatting and all!)}

— R O L L I N’– R O L L I N’– R O L L I N’ —
— O U T ! —

└[ಠ ◡ ಠ^✿┌] ^{more than meets the eye!} [┐^✿ಠ ◡ ಠ]┘

Note: It was almost DOUBLE-TROUBLE season…
Anyway… it’s review-time!

— Click here to jump to the actual review! —

Right! So!

I don’t like Transformers. No I didn’t like the cartoons. No I didn’t like the children’s books. No I didn’t ever have the toys or anything. You want someone who likes Transformers? Ask the Crow. He can name who turns into what and all. I’ve seen his collection of kiddies books with Optimus Prime and Megatron on the covers. I’m pretty sure he even had a few pairs of TF pants hidden around his flat (but enough about that)…

So why isn’t he reviewing this one?

Cause he hates the films. And even though I hate them too, I’m the one who’s been going to cinemas this year. And I’m the one who’s seen all the Transformers films (See?! It’s shit like this why I went brain-case).

So… you’re stuck with me.

A few days ago, I met up with our “special secret someone” and we went and watched Aquaman. While we were there, we got to see –B u m b l e b e e– too, even though I wasn’t really up for the film.

Like I said… I really don’t like the Transformers films (though I kinda always liked the Bumblebot). But it turned out our special someone’s a bit of a fan. Not of the films, but of the series. And THIS was why I wanted this special someone to be part of these last two reviews, but that’s not how things worked out.

So…

└[◕︿◕^✿┌] ^{me sad…}

I hadn’t seen the trailers or anything. I knew who the character was and that this was supposed to be a prequel. That was pretty much it. And WAIT! The dude who did Kubo and the Two Strings is working on this one…?! I… I don’t know how I feel about that…

I mean these films have just been getting worser and worser…

So… is this one of those days when I’ll have to bring out my bucket?
(Oh don’t you worry… it’s coming out soon alright…)

Or did I actually go and see a film I like? Let’s see now…

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— B U M B L E B E E -T —

WARNING: This section contains –MINOR– spoilers.

🤖 🤖 🤖 └[ಠ ◡ ಠ^✿┌] 🤖 🤖 🤖

Okay. This one straight-up starts out pretty awesome. There’s this big, glitzy chunk of story that happens right at the beginning and it looks pretty rad. And the REASON it’s rad is because it doesn’t really feel like the older TF films. It’s like the Transformers… move different? They look different? They feel more like… Oh! What’s it I’m trying to say?!

It took a bit to settle in, but this really didn’t feel like the other TF films right from the get-go. I did a bit of digging later and found out that the Transformers atually LOOK almost exactly like their cartoon/toy versions. So THAT’S this whole “G1” thing my friend was excited about!

And I heard something that got me excited for a bit too! It explains something I’d been wondering about for a long long time. But I’m going around in loop-a-loops right now…

So there’s this girl. Her name’s Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) and she needs a car. She lives with her standard teenage-flick family and there’s a dog. But she really needs money for a car. She’s a grease-munkey who works at this scrapyard and y’know what…? I can get behind this girl! Instead of getting her to bend over all stick-insect like and look at a car while rubbed up in goose fat and wearing like a napkin, she goes and starts working like an ACTUAL grease-munkey would. AND… (say it with me!) she’s NOT A MARY SUE!

So one thing leads to another and she ends up with a yellow beetle as a birthday present (the only real one she gets) from her boss Hank (Len Cariou) who has “very good toilets” and starts working on it so that she can fixer-upper. And guess what happens?

Yup! That’s right!

OF COURSE it’s a teenage grease-munkey with a helmet with flowers on it who calls the cute big robot beetle Bumblebee (VA: Dylan O’Brien) because he buzzes like a weeetle bee! Who else could it be?! Bumblebee’s been through a lot and he’s all scared around humans at first. And he’s SO CUTE! The whole part where he first gets to know Charlie is one BIG AWWW.

So we get the big bad Decepticons, who follow Bumbles to the Earth after hearing his distress call. (Or maybe it was just him saying “Hello World”). They meet up with Sector 7 to find Bumbles, where they meet Agent Burns (John Cena). Agent Burns is a dude with a brick for a jaw and met Bumbles when the cute little bot came to Earth in the first place. Since the NAME –DECEPTICONS– didn’t tip the folk he’s with off, they agree to help them out (idiots)! (I also kinda really liked the –DECEPTICON– BIG BAD in this film).

Don’t worry though. That stupid name DOES get brought up. This isn’t a dumb film. I liked that little line. I kinda liked how the humans deal with the Decepticons in general. But more on that in a mo.

Bumbles is told to keep the Earth safe until the rest of the –AUTOBOTS– get here while he’s legging it from the Decepticons. And yeah… that’s pretty much the story right there. That’s where the punchy-punchy comes from (and there’s a lot of it).

This film’s basically E.T. if E.T. was a much cuter little puppy-dog robot. I’m not really sure why Bumbles acts like a puppy-dog in the film because of how he acts at the start of the film. But I guess it’s robot-PTSD? The scenes where he’s learning to hide and be a ROBOT IN DISGUISE! are mad funny.

I liked how no one was really stupid even though the film made me think everyone would be. And… this is a pretty violent film for what it’s about. People get blown into tubs of jelly. Things get ripped out here and there. There’s a tiny bit of a T2-style “mow the cavalry down!” scene. And there’s some pretty edgy robot-on-robot punchy-punchy.

The story’s not much, but it makes sense. It doesn’t try to be too big for its boots and really most of it’s in the cute bits between Charlie and Bumbles. There’s a love interest, Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) and he’s pretty cool. Agent Burns is a pretty nice middle-man. He’s just the tough guy stuck in the middle and I liked how you were never really sure whether you’re supposed to root for him or hate him. He’s just got himself pushed into this bigHUGE robot war that’s come to Earth.

When the film came up to the end, there was this part that made me kinda almost sorta… shed a tear (okay no. I’m too soulless for that). And I had to ask WHY. I wanted this film to end up being a reboot. NOT a prequel. Everything just added up, but then Bumbles does something I just didn’t think worked out with the rest of the story. It DOESN’T make sense that Bumbles from the start of the original Transformers film would act the way he does now that this one’s a thing. I wish they’d just gone and rebooted the whole franchise because this film deserves to be in a better “universe” than those other TF films.

And I want to see Charlie come back. She has this story with her dad that’s going on during all the robot punchy-punchy and everything, and I liked how that went. I want to see her character fit into the universe, and hated that the ending just makes the connection she has with Bumbles look so weak by hooking up with the rest of the series. I get there are ways to fix this, but I just want –Bumblebee– to be its own thing without knowing about the garbo that comes after this story.

This is the best TF film. Period. It’s one of the better films this year. It’s funny. It’s cute. It made me care. And even though I’ve got a hellafalotta problems with the ending and what it’s setting up, I liked it a LOT.

More of this. Pls.

–Bumblebee– gets a BIG recommendation from me! It comes out in cinemas tonight, so go catch it when as soon as you can!

Magpie roll, roll, and –roll out!–

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— F I N A L – R A T I N G S —

THE AZURE-WINGED MAGPIE: — 8/10 —
THE “SECRET SOMEONE”: — 8/10 —
THE CROW: — TBD/10 —

THE CROW: TBD/10

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Here’s the official poster: