 Optimists and friends are back! Once again fighting off those pesky decepticons for the 800th time in theaters. How does this one stack up though? Transformers, Rise of the Beasts, to the old school Michael Bay films. Is it great? Is it okay? Where are we at with things? I'm here to break it down in spoiler-free fashion. So let's make like a transformer and roll out to the review. For starters, and to clean up some confusion that's out there, this is the seventh film live action Transformers movie. There was also the animated movie, but seven of them are live action. Five of which directed by Michael Bay. Zero of which this movie has anything to do with. I know it seems like it's a prequel, but it's not. It's its own thing. It is a sequel to Bumblebee, which originally was a prequel to the Michael Bay Transformers films. I don't know what point they decided that wasn't the thing anymore, but this is a sequel to that movie. It really doesn't need to be though. Nothing about Bumblebee is carried over into this film outside of that titular character. There's no other things that I noticed from the film, so you really can go into this fresh in a sense that might be the least confusing thing you could do because it's really hard to separate these from the Bayformers since the character models, the sound effects, just the overall presentation does feel like a Michael Bay movie. Now this is a lot more grounded than that, and I don't mean grounded as implausible or realistic. Now this thing's completely insane. I mean grounded as in the camera's not flying all over the place, stuff isn't blowing up every four seconds, but it's still very loony and over the top, which is fine. It's a Hasbro toyline film. So yeah, it's also a lot shorter than those Bayformers movies. This one clocks in at just over two hours, two hours and seven minutes. I believe the shortest Michael Bay movie is two hours and 24. He makes a full meal out of these things. So what can you expect from the movie? Well, you can expect an incredibly dumb paper thin plot about the Autobots hiding out on earth again. The Maximals have been there too. There's a staff that they're trying to find. There's also the big bad threat, which is Unicron. He's mentioned right away. This isn't like a reveal. Unicron is the big villain, and then he has this henchman, the Scourge. They're on the hell and hunt for this key that can bring Unicron into different galaxies so he can gobble up planets because that's what he does. He's like, I'm hungry. Where's the nearest planet? I gotta eat something. Okay, next one, and then there's nothing, and he's stuck, and he's like, Scourge, booby, I need you to find me some planets to eat, dude. Gotta feed the temple. We have no Shia in this, no Megan Fox, no Hailey Steinfeld. We have a new cast of humans because we still are doing the human thing. Although I will say they feel incredibly forced and tacked into this. And yes, Anthony Ramos is perfectly pleasant, perfectly serviceable, a nice little new hero character who sounds an awful lot like John Leguizamo at times. It's kind of frightening. He and Delena will get entangled into the Transformers affairs and the way they're utilized is laughably stupid. It's basically nothing more than these fetch quest video game sequences where Optimus is like, we can't get into this room because the hallway's too small. Humans, we trust you to do this. Go forth and don't fuck this up for us. Optimus, by the way, is such a douchebag in this movie. He's constantly angry and yelling at people. Noah's working his butt off. He just met this dude. It's not like he really signed up for this. And Optimus is like, you screwed us, dude. You really screwed the pooch on this, Noah. I swear, I'm just seconds away from ending you. The highlight on the Autobots side of things is Pete Davidson as Mirage. I kind of shudder just saying that out loud because I'm not a huge Pete Davidson fan, but he does a good job voice acting in this movie. Also, why does Optimus constantly have a death wish? Every single movie, Michael Bay or not, he's constantly trying to kill himself. He's like, I should have been the one that died there. And in that time, put the cube in my chest. I want to die, heroically. I don't even care if we get out of this situation, I just want it over with. I've been voicing this damn character since I was born. Peter Cullen's just breaking character now as the boys. You know, I misspoke at the beginning of this video. There's not actually any Decepticons in this. They're called Terrorcons. I can guarantee there's someone that's putting a comment down right when this video starts, ready to unload on me about this. There are no Decepticons in this movie. There are no, it's Terrorcons, you freaking idiot. Everything you say going forward is discredited because of that. Let's get to the punchline though. Where do I stand in this film? Well, after a thousand of these movies, just like the Fast and the Furious, I think everyone knows what to expect. Loud, bang bang, gun noises, really nonsensical stupid plot that could go any direction. People break all the bones in their body and get up, walk away, scot-free. There's no real stake. There's no real consequences to actions. It's all very light, fluffy affairs that you bring your son to and try to relive the glory days from the 80s and early 90s and say, hey, this was a man's show when I was your age, boy. Those Transformers were kick ass, and now you get to see it for like 250 million dollars on the big screen. And you like this because I liked this when I was your age, son. Fuck Minecraft in Fortnite. It's all right. It's okay. It's not my favorite Transformers movie. That still is the Michael Bay First film. It's not my least favorite by far. That's the Michael Bay Fifth film. This one I would say is probably in the number two or number three spot right around Bumblebee area. It's a fine little watch. The section in the middle really starts to lose me when they're putting the pieces of the plot together. It's pretty bad for a while, but the last half hour or so is just complete shenanigans. Just all out, Transformer warfare, tons of tips of the hat to the camera, wings to the audience, fan favorite scenes going on, some great hip hop music throughout. I believe the movie takes place in 1994, although I'm pretty sure some of these songs came out after 1994, but we're in a Transformers movie. So it doesn't matter at all. The Autobots hate police officers. I noticed that that was a big takeaway. At least two police fatalities pretty early on in the picture when Mirage is trying to get away from a scene of a crime and cops are chasing him. He almost goes out of his way to kill a couple of them. There's just no question they're dead. At one point he is barreling through traffic and then kind of slows down just enough for that cop to get t-boned, completely wrecked. I loved it. It was just fantastic. Just Autobots hate the cops. What other Transformers stood out? There's a female one that's kind of sexy. She's got hips. She's got a thin waist. She kind of has a swagger about her RC, I believe is the name. Uh, she was, you know, she was fine. A little odd that I was getting aroused by a female Transformer, but you know, I'm a 40-year-old married man for over 20 years, so this is all I have. This is all I have. The Scourge were fine adversaries. You had Peter Dinklage voicing one of them. There was a purple one that I'm not sure, honestly, if it was a woman or a man. Maybe a Transformer? It's possible. There's a variety of people, places, things, and explosions all around. I'm here for it. I welcome it. I champion it. As for the movie, it felt a little long at times, could have been a little shorter even. We could have gone under two hours, I think. We could have gone hour 45 with this thing and not missed a beat. They're clearly trying to make this a trilogy. I'm not against it. It does make a couple decisions later on that I kind of rolled my eyes hard at. Again, this storyline is really, really done with the humans. I would prefer if they weren't in it and it was just straight up all-out Autobot versus Decepticon or Scourge or whatever. They're fighting action. And maybe just one time, Optimus doesn't suck in a film. Every single time he comes out, he gets his ass kicked right away. I laughed actually really hard at something that wasn't supposed to be funny. And it's the first time Optimus goes up against this Scourge leader dude and he hits him with the axe and the Scourge guy's like and he hits Optimus back and Prime's like, impossible. And I sit there thinking, what? What do you mean impossible? You get your butt kicked by everyone. It would be impossible if you won the fight right away. That would be when I would sit up and be like, whoa, what happened? This is impossible. A win? A W? Where's the guy that's always wanting to kill himself? That's the Optimus I know. That's the Optimus I love. Noticeably missing Lincoln Park. Poor one out for Chester. I know Park is Sam Whitwicky era. I would have liked to hear something from them again. Bring them back. I understand it takes place in the 90s but we're already kind of messing with the music that came out at that time. Some of those songs I'm pretty positive were not from 1994. They were like 97. Here's the big takeaway, folks. A lot of Ben there done that with this film. We've seen this time and time again. It's easier to follow the action. Still get confused on the robots from time to time but for the most part it's framed up nice. A lot of green screen and just full blown CG work going on. Sometimes felt like an Avengers film with the longer takes on the camera. Going to the different characters as they pose for you and go down into those hero drops every 5 or 10 seconds. It's a bit old hat for me personally. However, it does have enough winks and nods and little smiles on its face and fun over the top extravagant moments to keep you watching and saying, yeah, I'm dead inside but at least I'm watching something fun while I'm dying. If you're thinking about bringing the fam, the little ones with, this one's okay as long as they've seen excessive violence and Autobots getting ripped to pieces and Decepticons and Scourge and all that crap. They're not gonna have a problem here. There's nothing sexually charged at all in this film. No Megan Foxx popping that box on top of a nice car. She's MIA. There's no hot woman in this film. Just a bunch of, you know, decent people trying to make it through the day. Take that back. We do have RC and she's very much a strong female lead. And honestly, it's about time. Part of me would love if they went R with one of these just because I think Peter Cullen really wants to swear a bunch and say inappropriate things with Optimus. There are so many moments in all of these films where they give him dialogue that's so head-scratchingly inappropriate, such as Autobots. First we go after the Decepticons and then we feast on their bones. He'll say something just ridiculous. I'm gonna put you down and rip your goddamn head off. That's what I want. I want him to just go all in. But for now we have this and you have this review of Transformers Rise of the Beast. Let me know if you saw it or if you're excited to see it. Your thoughts on the franchise as a whole. Where you think it's gonna go going forward. Put it in the comments. Please give the video a like if you had a good time. And I would love to have you subscribe to the channel as I post tons of movie content each week. Like to keep it fun, keep it loose. Would love to have more eyes on the channel. And hopefully I'll see you next time. Goodbye!