Producers of the latest “Transformers” are apparently so eager to reboot the series they use part of their time to detail the car/robots and what they’re designed to do.
For a newcomer, that’s particularly helpful. For the rest of us, it’s reason why this “Rise of the Beasts” goes 30 minutes longer than it should.
This time out, Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, as Brooklyn residents, get pulled into the Transformer-verse after he steals a Porsche, and she tries to decode its tribal markings.
Together, they go on a journey to Peru where, supposedly, the other part of a key is hidden.
On their trail: Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo) and Scourge (voiced by Peter Dinklage) who want to destroy Earth.
Once in Peru, the two have to make their way through Indiana Jones-level ruins and find the missing link.
Just in case you don’t follow the dots, “Rise of the Beasts” also has a mechanical ape who looks suspiciously like a former New Yorker. Director Steven Caple Jr. spells out plenty (we know who the good and the bad are before we start wondering why Pete Davidson is here) and has plenty on the precipice to suggest this could be Hasbro’s “Endgame.”
Like Melanie Griffith in “Working Girl,” Fishback covers for her boss (she’s a museum intern, no less) and does the heavy lifting for Optimus Prime and his ilk. (Optimus Primal, in case you didn’t pay attention, is the mechanical gorilla).
She bonds with Ramos, who’s so likable you forgive his thievery. When the car turns into a robot, you can see a 10-year-old’s wonder wash across his face.
Because it’s simple (and doesn’t have some of the convoluted subplotting of earlier installments), “Rise of the Beasts” has a chance to take this in another direction – particularly since the bad guys vow revenge and there’s enough left in the human relationships to keep it percolating.
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While “Transformers” is nothing more than a way to extend the shelf-life of toy cars that twisted into robots, it does have the accessories young movie goers have come to love: car chases, battling ‘bots and humans in peril. That we’ve seen this dozens of times over doesn’t matter. Characters – like Fishback’s and Ramos’ – act like they’ve never heard of transformers, even though they’ve been destroying things for decades. That naivete serves the old story well and avoids some of the otherworldly stuff previous installments embraced.
As summer movies go, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is harmless enough you could bring a kid and see the excitement through his eyes.
If you’ve been down the path several times before, you’ll realize they never really did figure out the Transformers’ purpose.
Sometimes a cool toy is just that.
The Journal's Top Stories for the Week of June 4, 2023
