Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Review!

Alright! Today I'm reviewing Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the 2023 Transformers film set in the 90s that sees the Autobots come into conflicts with the Maximals, Terrorcons, and the Unicron, all seen through the eyes of everyman Noah Diaz, an ex-military electronic expert who can't find work and decides to steal a car to support his family, unwittingly becoming trapped in the crossfire of a robot war about to destroy the world from the peaceful remotes of Peru.

However, this is unlike any Transformers film before - it's not animated like the 1986 film; it's not obnoxiously abrasive like the Michael Bay films; it's not genuinely excellent like 2018's Bumblee; no, this is an entirely new Transformers movie - one that is just regular bad. You see, the Michael Bay films, for all their faults, were so unbelievably bad it's incredible they were made, often making the audience ask hard questions such as: Did Bumblebee just pee on that guy? Is that Transformer racist? Did they just imply wrecking balls are testicles? Why is Anthony Hopkins here? Why does that guy carry a laminated card containing the Romeo & Juliet law? 

Rise of the Beasts is still bad... but it's not the atrocious dumpster fire that Michael Bay excels at. Even if his movies are neither masterpieces nor "so bad it's good," at least Bay's are memorable in just how bad they were. Rise of the Beasts has nothing to add to the franchise other than a new shade of Autobot with the Maximals, and the highest praise I can give is that at least they used them more efficiently than the Dinobots. 

Everything else about Rise of the Beasts is abysmal, and not even in a "fun to write about" abysmal, but in a boring abysmal. It's boring, it's long, visually bland, the humor doesn't land, the dialogue is atrocious, the action is unmemorable, and the finale's CGI is shaky. If you've seen any other Transformers movie you've seen this one, and the only thing it can add to the franchise is that the finale finally gives into the 2010s "gray CGI battlefield with a sky beam and a horde of disposable CGI minions" trope. And that's not even a valuable addition to the franchise! It just makes it like every other action blockbuster.

The biggest fault of Rise of the Beasts is that it's generic - Transformers are many things, but never generic. They traumatize in a number of ways or, in one case, are genuinely impressive and heartfelt coming-of-age stories. Rise of the Beasts is like every other movie you've ever seen, with the only mildly interesting thing being that the finale is set in Peru and occasionally it looks like the actors had to go outside for a few scenes. Not even the charm of Anthony Ramos can save the film, and no one other than die-hard fanboys is likely to find anything interesting about it. 

Overall, I give Transformers: Rise of the Beasts a 4/10. "Unlike prior Transformers movies, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is bad, but not atrociously bad, and that almost makes it even worse." 

"Wow! A down-on-their-luck electrician everyman unwittingly stumbles across a Transformer, they become friends, and save the world! What an original idea!"