Geekatana Movie Review: Bumblebee

With Bumblebee finally showing throughout theaters in the Philippines I finally got to see the movie and do a review on it. Folks in other countries have already seen it and there's a lot of movie review going on the internet since early December last year. I wanted to see Bumblebee and judge the film without being swayed by other opinions so I stayed away from spoilers and reviews until I got my own review out.

Being one of many Transformers fan who watched the 80's Transformers cartoons I got high hopes for this film.  The Bay films are decent but not exactly the Transformers film I wanted. The previous Transformers films diverts from the source material way too much for my liking. The trailers showed much promise but still I kept an open mind.

Bumblebee is set in the 80's where a girl named Charlie who has turned 18 befriends a robot from the planet Cybertron. The two becoming close friends and each try to discovers their true purpose in the grand scale of thing. Bumblebee is a prequel film of the first Michael Bay Transformers film and the six film in the robot franchise.

Usually in a Transformers film the movie plot dips down when the human side of the story is the focus of a scene but Bumblebee surprisingly had little to none of that. Charlie story arch is as touching and well done as the robot/Bumblebee scenes. Bumblebee has the right amount of action, story to keep you entertained and it has heart.

The characters are well developed and you know where each is coming from. You know why the female girl Charlie acts the way she is cause they gave her enough back story. You get why John Cena's character Burns hates Transformers. Each has their own character story arc intertwining with each other. The film does a great job of resolving each of this character arc without sounding forced or tact on

Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie was adorable and her interaction with Bumblebee was the best parts of the film. I was worried that Charlie would sound like Gwen Stacy from Spider-man Into the Spider-verse which she has voice acted. But Charlie is her own character and quirks it's hard to think they are the same actress. John Cena was also fun and charming as well. I kind of wished we see more of him in the film but this is a two hour long movie as it is.

The visuals was spot on and the beginning 10 minutes of the film was pure Transformers candy. From the G1 designs right to the fight scenes. Everything is well done and you clearly see what is going and not just a jumbled metal on the big screen. You can clearly see what's going on in the screne. The best part is no overly sexualized girls and over the top explosions either.

The movie uses a lot of 80's style music and it fits the film perfectly. There's even one particular music track that I'm sure fans of Transformers will surely love and the way they used it was so perfect I couldn't think of a better scene. It has new and old music tracks that are iconic to the franchise itself.

I'm not sure if this film is a reboot or a real prequel since this could be a reboot movie in itself. Personally I don't mind if they reboot the franchise from this point and forget the bay films ever happened. This film clearly did way better than all the live action bay Transformers film that came before it. Bumblebee film did a lot of things right for Transformers both in lore and story that I'm interested on where they are going to go from here on out.

Overall Bumblebee is a near perfect Transformers film. It did a lot of things right from the visuals, cinematography, character and plot. This is the Transformers film we should have had at the very beginning and I think a lot of people will agree with me on this. Bumblebee is a love letter to fans of Transformers and it's also a great entry point for you are also new to the franchise. A must see.