If you want to see a cute movie about how a troubled teenager who befriends an alien from outerspace then you should go watch Terminator 2 where there is an actual story with a purpose unlike this disrespectful standalone film known as “Bumblebee’. I always thought that “The Last Knight” was the worst film in the Transformers series, but Bumblebee said, “Hold my Beer”.
A quick and painless roundup of the film, The movie opens to a war on Cybertron, where the Autobots are getting their asses handed to them by the Decepticons. Optimus Prime, who is leading the Autobot resistance, decides to throw in the towel by sending Autobot B-127 to Earth to find refuge for the others. When B-127 touches down on Earth, some Decepticons get wind of B-127 going to Earth and decide to follow him. B-127 encounters Jack Burns (John Cena) and the rest of Sector 7 who try to take him down. B-127 tries to communicate with them but is interrupted by a decepticon. The Decepticon decimates B-127 and destroys his memory and voice box.
B-127 manages to escape the Decepticon but his system shuts down and he transforms into a buggie. A troubled teenager Charlie (Hailee Steinfield) who isn’t over the sudden death of her father discovers the buggie and receives it as a birthday present from her uncle after she fixes it up.
B-127 system is rebooted by her and he transforms. She makes it known that she is not an enemy and he has nothing to be scared of. He sees her as his friend and he has nothing to be afraid of. She names him Bumblebee. Skipping ahead, Bumblebee tries to get her out of her shell while still trying to hide himself.
The Decepticons befriend Sector 7 in order to find Bumblebee, when they do, they try to kill him. Charlie tries to rescue Bumblebee from the Decepticons but they already beat the crap out of him and they found out that Optimus Prime and the other Autobots are with hopes of wiping out all of them. Charlie then tries to reboot his system with direct electric shots but stops when she sees its not working.
Bumblebee magically comes to life with his memory and is ready to go to war again. The Decepticons try to make contact with the other Decepticons from Cybertron but are destroyed by Bumblebee and Charlie. After the battle, Bumblebee and Charlie part ways in a less than emotional goodbye and Bumblebee transforms into a Camero. Charlie is happily driving in her new car that isn’t an alien from outerspace.
Boy, that was so painful to summarize. “Bumblebee” is really a cute movie with no true purpose. It doesn’t really give any backstory to Bumblebee besides make him look like a cute little comedic machine instead of a war autobot like he was created to be. This movie was less than interesting. The beginning was promising but as the story continued, the purpose diminished.
I was disappointed by the story as whole. I looked at my phone, strolled through my Twitter feed for about ten minutes and I can honestly say I didn’t miss anything important in the movie.
On the bright side of the movie, the fight scenes weren’t as cringy as the other movies were. It was a good change of pace. I also really liked that they changed the design of the Optimus Prime. John Cena was a good comedic relief to the movie. And that’s where it ends.
I would not recommend this movie who is a transformer lover, this film was strictly for enjoyment and not anyone looking to be redeemed for the last two transformer movies. The late 1980’s set was cringy. The only thing 80s about this movie was the carnival, the cars, and Hailee’s hair. Speaking of Hailee, she was like this invincible force that could not be knocked down.
She would be downright disrespectful to her mom and stepdad and lived to tell about it. I thought the 80s were a little more rough on kids, considering the times weren’t as sensitive as they were today. It would have been nice to see her mom smack her or something, not like a Joe Jackson ass whopping, but a mild Michael Myers scare. She also survived a missile hitting her because she was in a trashcan, she had more life in her than Bumblebee did.
Bumblebee was done a serious injustice in this movie. Only thing we got out of this movie was that he uses the radio to communicate with people, I guess to coincide with the original transformer movie. Bumblebee was far more hilarious than in previous movies and was seen more as a cute oversized toy than a war machine. What also bothered me about this movie was the ending. If Bumblebee ended up staying on Earth instead of going back to Cybertron, why did he have to leave her, it made no sense, if he stayed with Sam, he could have stayed with Charlie.
In conclusion, if you are a fan of the relationship between a human and an alien, then go watch King Kong, Lilo and Stitch, and the original Transformers movies, because this movie was not it.
