I was finally able to see Bumblebee. I need to start this review by saying that I watched the original Transformers series from the 80s growing up and absolutely loved it. Transformers and GI Joe took the majority of my allowance when I was growing up. Transformers: The Movie (1986) is still one of my favorite movies. I’ve watched at least part of every Transformers series that has been made (with the exception of Rescue Bots; I’m waiting for my nieces to get old enough for that one….) I’ve read Transformers comics, read Transformers books, and for better or worse, I’ve seen all of Michael Bay’s live action Transformers movies.
While I have watched all of the live action movies, I’ve never been a huge fan, and I finally figured out the reason. In all of the original animated series, I can remember 5 human character off the top of my head. 5 characters in three seasons, one movie, and one mini-series that served as the fourth season. The story was focused on the Transformers, not the humans. In all of the live action movies, the plot seems to focus more on the humans than the Transformers. The first five live action movies have been made to show off their stars, Shia Lebeouf and Mark Wahlberg, so I think that’s where they have missed the mark.
Bumblebee is supposed to be a prequel, and not a reboot. Unfortunately, this causes some time line issues with previous movies (the following will contain spoilers for the previous movies). After deciding that the Autobots need to retreat from war on their home world of Cybertron, Optimus Prime charges Bumblebee with the task of reaching Earth and keeping it safe for the Autobots to regroup on. We are told in Transformers (2007) that the Transformers left in search of the All Spark, so here’s continuity issue number one. Bumblebee lands on Earth in 1987. In Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), we are shown Bumblebee fighting alongside the Allies in World War II, so, continuity issue number two. Bumblebee lands in the middle of a training exercise for Sector 7 (convenient), and they react as if they have no idea what they are seeing. But, in Transformers (2007), it’s said that Sector 7 was formed after the discovery of the All Spark, and that they recovered Megatron’s shut down body in the 1930s. So a high ranking agent in Sector 7 (John Cena’s character) acts like he’s never seen a walking, talking robot before, but his agency has had Megatron imprisoned at Hoover Damn since the 1930s? I call that continuity issue number 3. This is all within the first twenty or thirty minutes of the movie.
For a movie that is ignoring a lot of the fiction that has been set up by the previous movies, there are still a lot of things to tie them together. John Turturro’s character of Agent Simmons makes a brief cameo, this time played by Nick Pilla, as one of John Cena’s subordinates. There are other ties that I can’t reveal without getting into spoiler territory.
Once the movie gets going, it’s not bad…especially if you can ignore the inconsistencies. Between Bumblebee’s VW alternate mode, and most of the opening sequence on Cybertron, there is a lot of fan service to fans of the original animated series. My recommendation is to watch Bumblebee while thinking of it as a stand-alone tale. My final take? It’s a rental worthy movie.
