What’s up Nerds! Happy Veteran’s Day to all who served. I thought it would be cool to do a review on a movie that was also centered around a veteran. So the movie review is on Transformers Rise of the Beasts. I was actually pretty excited to watch this movie mainly because Tobe Nwigwe was in it (he’s too funny). Let’s get into the review.

Disclaimer: Spoilers! I’ll be talking about various plot points so you’ve been warned 🙂

Story

I enjoyed watching the movie overall. It was a decent movie. I have some qualms about the plot but those will be discussed later. I like that they used a veteran, Noah Diaz as the main character. It was realistic depiction of a veteran coming back after serving and having to deal with the hardships of life. Noah who has not been able to land a job has added stress of taking care of his younger brother with his ongoing sickness. The plot for how the Primals came to Earth and Unicron made sense. Big villain sends smaller villains to go and prepare the land to be eaten. The heroes stop the villains and sacrifice one of their own, which leads to an escape. This may be because I did not watch the Bumblebee movie (the alleged relaunch of Transformers), but I’m not quite sure how the Autobots landed on Earth after the war on Cybertron. Anyway some time has passed and that’s when we meet Noah and his family. Because Noah is hard up on money he lets the neighborhood hustler convince him to steal a car. And the car is a what? You guessed it an Autobot, named Mirage. At the same time we meet Elena an intern in the archeological department at some unnamed college. She’s snooping around an artifact she did not have access too, which turns out to be a piece of tech from Cybertron. Elena unknowingly sets off a beacon which then alerts all the Autobots and enemies in the area. Cut to Mirage kidnapping Noah and taking him to meet the other Bots. The rest of the movie moves along like a typical Transformers/action movie.

Characters

The best parts of the movie, I would argue are the characters. Noah was charismatic but I guess shrewd. He seemed to correctly surmise his situations quickly most likely due to his military training. He knew Optimus did not have his best interest at heart upon their meeting and he knew when it came down to it the Autobots were only interested in going back to their own home. He acted in his nature of protecting the ones he loves most and in this case it extended to the rest of the world. Elena was the intelligent and cute intern! You felt for her as it showed she was really the mastermind behind the success of the She was empathetic to the plight of the Autobots yet fascinated by their language and ancient artifacts. She was the sound of reason and compassion to Noah’s rigidity. She paired well with Airazor in trying to keep the fragile peace between her, Noah and the Autobots. She is essential in finding the second part of the key to get the Autobots home.

For the actual Autobot, Bumblebee is obviously the favorite. Mirage, in my opinion was annoying. His power was cool but it wasn’t enough to ease the annoying personality. Most of the time I just wanted him to stop talking. The Primals were my favorites minus Bumblebee. I think just seeing the animals in a Transformers version was pretty cool. The villains were pretty one dimensional so there’s not a lot to say on them.

Inconsistencies

So here is where we get to some of the plot points that did not make sense. Firstly, to be heralded as this brilliant leader, Optimus Prime was abysmal in his leadership. I know there has to be tension in the movie, but Optimus was getting his butt handed to him by Scourge every single time they fought. I was starting to wonder why the Autobots got stranded on Earth but with his leadership I’m not so suprised. Secondly, there’s a scene where Noah and Elena are sitting next to each other on the very old Autobot plane heading to Peru. I don’t remember the conversation but then Elena just lays her head on Noah’s shoulder. Why??? Are you guys trauma bonding? You just met this man and I’m sure it hasn’t even been 3 days. Why are you laying your head on his shoulder??? And lastly, the most glaring discrepancy in the movie would be the “human-sized” tunnel that leads to the computer that Elena conveniently knows how to read, type, and operate? Clearly these Transformers have never had to deal with IT problems, but it just did not make sense that Elena knows how to operate the entire system just because she recognized a few symbols.

Conclusion

The movie was par for the course. It was neither good nor bad, it was just average. But if I had to give it a rating, it would get a solid 2.5 out 5 Nerd Light Stars. There were some plot points that need to be revisited but it was an enjoyable movie. Let me know what you think of the new Transformers in the comments. Keep nerding out!