DELIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE

MOVIE
Bumblebee
Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz
Director Travis Knight
Review Ray Chan

As his Wikipedia entry proclaims, director Michael Bay has become synonymous with big-budget action productions characterised by stylistic visuals and extensive use of special effects, “including frequent depictions of explosions”.
    Over more than a decade, he has suffused the Transformers films with his discordant brand that often involved lengthy scenes of mass destruction: sensory divertissements that had more in common with high-speed amusement rides in mosh pits than what we would otherwise consider customary, cinematic storytelling. 
     But Bumblebee, refreshingly, is quite unlike its predecessors. New director Travis Knight shows that there’s no need to traverse the route of spectacular crash-bang effects to effectively sell the concept of alien beings that can morph into machines.
    Some cynics might suggest that’s not difficult, since storytelling consistency and half-decent character development are probably all that are needed to better the tedious array of antecedents. 
    In Bumblebee’s case, this false praise would be a travesty of justice, for it truly is a solid and satisfying movie that melds action, humour, and characterisation, and with enough pathos to establish a clear connectivity with the audience. 
    Justifiably so, Knight’s new era re-tells the origin of the Transformers, taking us back to the planet Cybertron, where the civilisation of sentient robots is in the middle of a savage war with the attacking band of Decepticons.
    Recognising imminent defeat, Transformers leader Optimus Prime signals a hasty retreat for his armies of Autobots and commands a soldier to flee to Earth to prepare the planet to become the resistance’s new base of operations.
    The black-and-yellow automaton crashes in the thick of a military exercise, led by Agent Jack Burns (John Cena), which quickly escalates into a robot hunt, as the alien, demonstrating a mix of fear and curiosity,  desperately flees his pursuers, trying to avoid harming them while evading capture. 
    Unfortunately for the Autobot, a Decepticon duly arrives to confront him. In the battle that ensues, the Transformer manages to destroy his attacker, but not before his voice box is ripped out, his memory erased, and his shell converted into a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle as a defense mechanism.
    Eventually ending up in a car yard, the dormant apparatus gets acquired by teenage amateur mechanic Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld), who’s still mourning the death of her father. The iron giant that can also become a convenient compact car immediately becomes her new best friend, but not before it demonstrates feelings of insecurity, a willingness to assimilate, and a child-like innocence.
    The pair bond and enter a series of comic misadventures, giving the movie a more interesting and entertaining resonance than the other mega-serious Transformers offerings. Eventually they battle two more Decepticons, who have arrived on Earth and duped the US army with their intentions in a bid to flush out the Autobot, now renamed Bumblebee by Charlie.
    At its essence, the movie is about finding one’s purpose and voice (for Bumblebee, this is literal; for Charlie, symbolic). Certainly, the delightful chemistry between the two has given the franchise its buzz back, pun intended. They have ample opportunity to learn important lessons, prove their heroism and save the world, even as their efforts point to more ominous adventures on the horizon.
    As always, Optimus Prime appears at the end to deliver his preachy, Adam West-esque monologue, a speech that actually blends in well with the more light-hearted nature of the film.
    Bumblebee fits nicely in the family action genre, laced with genuine and good-humoured performances, and direction that finally makes the Transformers characters feel real. The screenplay by Christina Hodson embraces the familiar structure of classic magical sidekick movies such as Pete’s Dragon, E.T. and even another Beetle accomplice in Herbie, complete with an obligatory scene where our hero looks as if he’s expired, but in which everyone just knows he will recover.
    As an aside, the decision to portray Bumblebee as a mid-'60s Volkswagen Bug may seem like a strange choice to some, but this model was the character’s original configuration in early stages of the Transformers timeline before it became the more muscular Chevrolet Camaro in later sequels, an evolution which is acknowledged at movie’s end and will surely delight hardcore Transformers fans. 
    All in all, Knight shines like his proverbial namesake, letting the adventure take flight into a joyous orbit, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bumblebee. With Paramount’s planned Transformers 7 project shelved for now, this character could represent the studio’s next best chance to extend the franchise, particularly if it doesn’t detour from the motion picture motorway it’s travelling on.

#bumblebeemovie