Transformers: Rise of the Beasts was a weird moment in the Transformers live-action movie franchise. Remember when we all thought Michael Bay’s adaptation of a Saturday morning cartoon was as bad as movies could get? After five entries, billions of dollars, and widespread cultural condemnation, Bay dropped the reins. Travis Knight made the first good live-action Transformers with Bumblebee. That put a ton of pressure on Rise of the Beasts, but it failed to deliver.
After Knight, Steven Caple Jr. took over the robots in disguise. He’s a relatively new talent with only a few projects to his name. His first film was a touching drama called The Land. That got him attention from several pros, landing him in the director’s chair for Creed II. Those are his only projects before Rise of the Beasts, but he’s clearly got a lot of promise.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Goes Beast Mode on Netflix
The seventh Transformers film wants to be the franchise’s Endgame. You can tell by the universal stakes and the long-winded final battle. That massive action set piece feels like a parody of Endgame‘s fireworks display finale, right down to its nondescript setting. Unfortunately, the film lacks Endgame‘s background. It has six films to build from, but it completely fails to capture the triumph of its competitors. Instead, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts feels like someone throwing a party for something they failed to accomplish. The barebones plot follows Anthony Ramos as an ambitious kid trying to provide for his mom and younger brother. He steals a car that happens to be an Autobot. This drags him and a museum intern into a bout between Autobots, allied animal Maximals, and the evil Unicron. The Beast Wars characters and Unicron were compelling selling points that didn’t really work out.
Look, I like watching a giant robot gorilla beat up faceless machines as much as the next guy, but Transformers: Rise of the Beasts isn’t very good. Critics slapped it with a 52% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s among the franchise’s best, but it’s no high accomplishment. The film didn’t fare well financially either, raking in $441 million on a $200 million budget. Again, that should be impressive, but it pales in comparison to the rest of the franchise. Paramount was expecting a far bigger haul, practically guaranteeing a new direction for the franchise. They’re allegedly planning a crossover with their awful G.I. Joe films, but Transformers seems to be a losing proposition for the studio.
Paramount found a great new direction for the Transformers franchise with Transformers One this year. It was a solid film that recaptured the long-absent respect of the fanbase. Unfortunately, it faced a legacy sequel in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and a better film in The Wild Robot. That sealed the project’s fate, prompting Paramount to proclaim they wouldn’t fund future adaptations. Transformers fans can’t catch a break, but at least they don’t have to suffer through bad movies anymore.
