‘Bumblebee’ is the ‘Transformers’ film we deserved and have finally received

Posted on December 28, 2018

By MARK VIOLA

I’ve said this before, but I wasn’t a huge “Transformers” fan growing up in the 80s when the cartoon was all the rage. That’s not to say I didn’t watch the show and play with the toys, but I was always more of a “G.I. Joe” fan.
Still, the idea of a live-action “Transformers” film was intriguing. The 2007 release of the Michael Bay-directed summer blockbuster definitely played to my inner child, delivering a decent film that has looked better and better in retrospect as each subsequent sequel failed to live up to the original’s admittedly average benchmark.

Traveling back along the trail of broken robotic dreams left behind by Bay, it would be easy to believe that we would never get a good “Transformers” movie, at least not while he was still in the director’s chair.

And, that is exactly why I was more than a little interested in the latest installment in the franchise, “Bumblebee,” a prequel set back in the 80s, following the title Transformer’s first arrival on Earth.

Not only is this the first “Transformers” film not directed by Bay (a point worth mentioning twice), but it also has the shortest runtime and the smallest budget, both things that ultimately help the movie as a whole.

Overall, “Bumblebee” is easily the best “Transformers” film to date — a low bar I know — but’s also the first truly good “Transformers” film, one which I left not hating my choice to review movies, but instead looking forward to seeing it again.

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