'Beasts' an awesome improvement of franchise

The live-action ‘Transformers’ franchise has been around since 2007 when action director Michael Bay brought the series to life on the big screen. After its fifth entry, ‘The Last Knight,’ didn’t quite gain momentum in theaters, the series eventually received the soft-reboot treatment with the entertaining 2018 movie ‘Bumblebee.’

Now, the Autobots are back to try to save the world from another threat in ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.’

Optimus Prime and his fellow Autobots take on their biggest challenge yet.

When a new threat capable of destroying the entire planet emerges, they must team up with a powerful faction of Transformers known as the Maximals to save the planet.

‘Rise of the Beasts’ delivers some very spectacular action sequences and really great visual effects.

The beginning of the latest entry introduces us to both the new threat and a new band of Transformers that we will be following during this latest Autobot adventure. Some of the new robot characters are really memorable and once you see what the new threat (Unicorn for those familiar with Transformers lore) can do, you can tell that it will be the toughest challenge yet for the Autobots.

This latest sequel still has a story that shows humans helping out the titular robots that all the other movies have done. Even though the human/Autobot story has been done again and again, it still works.

The human characters that we follow, Noah and Elena, have quite a lot of character development and can be quite compelling at times. Just like the previous 2018 movie Bumblebee, this movie adds some emotion to the human side of the story, especially with the Noah character.

Out of all the new characters that are introduced in this movie, Mirage is definitely the stand-out character of them all. The character, voiced by Pete Davidson, delivers some very humorous quips and does a great job serving as the comic relief of this sequel.

All in all, ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ is a very entertaining follow-up to the series and is one of the better installments of the entire franchise. And, even though it’s technically a sequel to the ‘Bumblebee’ soft-reboot, it’s pretty much a stand-alone story and has a very subtle reference or two from the movie.

Also, the movie gives a few hints at the end of where the series will go next, which includes a potential crossover that will be very interesting to see. So, gather up your fellow Transformer fans and don’t miss ‘Rise of the Beasts’!

The cast: Anthony Ramos as Noah Diaz; Dominique Fishback as Elena Wallace; Luna Lauren Valez as Breanna Diaz; Dean Scott Vasquez as Kris Diaz; Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime; Michelle Yeoh as Airazor; Peter Dinklage as Scourage; Pete Davidson as Mirage; Colman Domingo as Unicorn and Ron Perlman as Optimus Primal.

The movie is written by Joby Harold (The Flash; Netflix’s Army of the Dead); Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Eric Hoeber (My Spy; The Meg; the upcoming The Meg 2) and Jon Hoeber and directed by Steven Saple Jr. (Creed II).

‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’ is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and language and has a running time of 127 minutes.

Let me know on my Wyoming County Press Examiner Facebook page what your favorite Transformer movie is and your thoughts on this recent movie! And, coming up next for reviews — ‘Elemental,’ ‘The Flash’ and ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.’ I will also be re-visiting the Transformers series and giving my own personal ranking that will be available on the Facebook page soon!

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