Film of the Week: Bumblebee

This was firstly thought of as a spin-off from the main franchise, but now I see it as a complete reboot of the franchise altogether. The main reason for that is it completely retcons everything the five films had built. The main franchise saw Bumblebee fighting in WW2, but in Bumblebee, he arrives for the first time ever in 1987.

Admittedly, it did leave me a bit quizzical at first. The Transformers franchise hasn’t exactly been amazing when it comes to storytelling, but I had to go back a couple of minutes just to make sure I read that date right. It definitely said 1987, and not earlier. Was it a massive continuity error, no. It’s established from the very beginning, they’re venturing to Earth for the first ever time, when in the main franchise they’ve been on Earth for quite some time beforehand.

My next question was whether I was OK with them rebooting the franchise. Well, let’s face it, the main reason for all the Transformers movies being made is to sell toys. I guess I was naturally expecting an expansion from the main franchise, so yes as established above I was a bit confused to find it chucking everything that Michael Bay had built over the years. On the other hand, however, I just accepted the reboot as the film went on. Basically, what I’m saying is, any Transformers film capable of retconning and disintegrating the fifth film out of existence in Bumblebee’s world, then that’s OK with me.

Without turning this into another rant about how Transformers: The Last Knight is a disaster, let’s swing back and talk about Bumblebee as a film. It may chuck out the lore we know, but how is it as a movie? Well, simple. It has cool CGI moments, practical effects, and strangely enough some evolution of the main character. For the first time in the history of live-action Transformers movies, we have a story we can invest – mainly because it’s not non-stop action for the majority of the film. It’s a slow start, but soon picks up. It has a couple of genuinely funny moments, the standout moment was when Bumblebee gets bored and starts roaming around the house, inevitably absolutely destroying everything.

Hailee Steinfeld plays the lead human in this film, and there was a brief moment when I questioned why she would go from the epic masterpiece that is Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse to Bumblebee, giving Transformers notable reputation of being, well, comical for many of the wrong reasons, but she made a good choice in fairness. Her character was much fuller than Sam’s could ever be, and especially much more three-dimensional compared to Cade, who I’m still not sure what he contributed to the fifth film.

If Bumblebee had ended with some reference to the start of how Sam found him at the car-dealership in the first film, then yes, that would have established the continuity obliterating Bumblebee as part of the main franchise, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Thankfully, it actually doesn’t pay any reference that I could find to the five films, mounting itself as a separate entity. I guess that’s why I found it somewhat entertaining after coming to terms this isn’t sharing the same universe.

Bumblebee is a film I am actually recommending. It’s a fresh start and offers a bit more than you’d first expect.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)