Everybody has known it for ages: Optimus is well past his Prime.
The primary “Transformers” film in 2007, starring Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, was frivolous enough; the subsequent 4 were appalling; after which 2018’s surprising “Bumblebee” gave us some hope that the series still had some gas within the tank.
Running time: 127 minutes. Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of sci-fi motion and violence, and language.) In theaters.
Improper! The fuel gauge is at “E” — for excruciating. The seventh movie within the franchise, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” is a predictable return to rock-em-sock-em stupidity with nothing so as to add except Michelle Yeoh as a talking aluminum falcon.
What a misnomer “Transformers” is. These movies never change one iota. Once more the noble numbskull Autobots are back, but this time they’re parked in 1994 Latest York City following the events of “Bumblebee,” whatever they were.
As usual, a likable young person (Noah Diaz, played by Anthony Ramos) is shocked to find the Porsche he’s sitting in is definitely a sentient robot who mysteriously wisecracks and speaks in American slang.
That bot on this instance is Mirage, who abruptly publicizes, “I’m an alien!”
The Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, then task the Brooklynite — who’s been attempting to earn money through occasionally criminal means to pay for his little brother’s cancer treatment — with stealing the “transwarp key” from a museum, where he meets a brilliant-but-belittled art expert named Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback).
The transwarp key would allow the Autobots, who’ve been stranded on Earth for seven years, to finally return to their home planet. But when it gets into the hands of the evil Terrorcons — don’t they sound sweet! — the baddies could destroy a limitless variety of worlds. Noah and Elena must stop them.
The Terrorcons are led by Scourge (Peter Dinklage, apparently), who also needs the important thing to bring back his boss Unicron. That sentence says all you want to learn about this bludgeoning of the brain.
All “Transformers” really must do — very similar to the “Fast & Furious” franchise — is top itself with regards to badass recent vehicles and breathtaking chase scenes. The plots won’t ever be riveting, and the characters are cartoons. On cool-factor, the filmmakers don’t deliver. Just like “Fast X,” there’s nothing even barely novel or impressive about “Rise of the Beasts.”
About those underwhelming beasts: We’re introduced to the Maximals, yet more robo-aliens who as a substitute appear to be a bird, gorilla (named Optimus Primal) and cheetah. They’ve been hiding out within the mountains of Peru, director Steven Caple Jr.’s generic movie’s only other location.
The Maximals’ impact is minimal, they usually serve only as more steel sticks within the mud who speak in narrator whispers and have a vague mission.
The ultimate scene introduces a toy franchise-tie-in that will create a sort-of Hasbro Cinematic Universe. Possibly we should always let the Terrorcons destroy the Earth in any case.
