Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a reset on the franchise that’s been booming through cineplexes for the past sixteen years. Candidly, I haven’t seen a Transformers movie since 2009. I saw this newest Transformers movie as a kind of intellectual exercise. In our franchise-saturated movie-world, I wondered if I would be able to get anything out of this film given I know nothing about the state of the story now and next to nothing about Transformers in general. An intellectual experiment at a Transformers movie – I know, that sounds like testing matches in the shallow end of the pool. Can I evaluate this film given how little I know about its franchise? Can I say whether or not this movie is good?
What is good? On some level that’s the question you have to answer in evaluating the worthwhileness of a movie like this.
Given the multiplicity of styles possible at the movies, you first need to decide what a film sets out to accomplish. If it accomplishes that aim, you might perhaps call it “good.” A movie like this wants to be diverting, so it keeps its characters plain, its themes obvious, and its plot simple. The franchise’s reason for existence is to show audiences giant, photorealistic alien robots fighting each other, and it wants to take audiences to that place as quickly and as often as possible. In this, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts succeeds.
The second question we have to answer though is whether or not a film’s ambition is a worthwhile one. Like a villain, a movie can be effective without being good. Here we’re expanding our understanding of “good” to carry moral and aesthetic as well as utilitarian weight.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is aesthetically articulate. It is not complex but it is clear. It is aware of its genre and its forebears. It includes the kind of cinematography, editing, and special effects that denote meaning in its aesthetic tradition. Some of those moments are more pleasing than others. My favorite is when the villain declares his evilness in front of a wall of flames. Other movies do this better, but this movie does it well enough. Moments like that are what this sort of thing is all about.
How about morally though? Here, I am expanding the meaning of “morally” to include anything that reveals something to us about the human condition. There is a little bit of something here about sacrificing personal desires in favor of the greater good. That’s okay, though it is only a short hop from there to the belief that it is allowable to sacrifice others for that same “greater good,” and this movie definitely skips willy-nilly across that line. Morally, let’s call Transformers: Rise of the Beasts a draw. It doesn’t really tell us anything worth hearing about life, but it doesn’t lie to us either.
Is this too much thinking about a Transformers movie? For sure. But it’s the middle of June. It’s hot outside. Movie theaters are air-conditioned. I’ve already seen all the better movies that are playing (much more quietly) in the other theaters. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is good enough.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a reset on the franchise that’s been booming through cineplexes for the past sixteen years. Candidly, I haven’t seen a Transformers movie since 2009. I saw this newest Transformers movie as a kind of intellectual exercise. In our franchise-saturated movie-world, I wondered if I would be able to get anything out of this film given I know nothing about the state of the story now and next to nothing about Transformers in general. An intellectual experiment at a Transformers movie – I know, that sounds like testing matches in the shallow end of the pool. Can I evaluate this film given how little I know about its franchise? Can I say whether or not this movie is good?
What is good? On some level that’s the question you have to answer in evaluating the worthwhileness of a movie like this.
Given the multiplicity of styles possible at the movies, you first need to decide what a film sets out to accomplish. If it accomplishes that aim, you might perhaps call it “good.” A movie like this wants to be diverting, so it keeps its characters plain, its themes obvious, and its plot simple. The franchise’s reason for existence is to show audiences giant, photorealistic alien robots fighting each other, and it wants to take audiences to that place as quickly and as often as possible. In this, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts succeeds.
The second question we have to answer though is whether or not a film’s ambition is a worthwhile one. Like a villain, a movie can be effective without being good. Here we’re expanding our understanding of “good” to carry moral and aesthetic as well as utilitarian weight.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is aesthetically articulate. It is not complex but it is clear. It is aware of its genre and its forebears. It includes the kind of cinematography, editing, and special effects that denote meaning in its aesthetic tradition. Some of those moments are more pleasing than others. My favorite is when the villain declares his evilness in front of a wall of flames. Other movies do this better, but this movie does it well enough. Moments like that are what this sort of thing is all about.
How about morally though? Here, I am expanding the meaning of “morally” to include anything that reveals something to us about the human condition. There is a little bit of something here about sacrificing personal desires in favor of the greater good. That’s okay, though it is only a short hop from there to the belief that it is allowable to sacrifice others for that same “greater good,” and this movie definitely skips willy-nilly across that line. Morally, let’s call Transformers: Rise of the Beasts a draw. It doesn’t really tell us anything worth hearing about life, but it doesn’t lie to us either.
Is this too much thinking about a Transformers movie? For sure. But it’s the middle of June. It’s hot outside. Movie theaters are air-conditioned. I’ve already seen all the better movies that are playing (much more quietly) in the other theaters. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is good enough.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
As long as we are getting movies as good as Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, we can stay in superhero land for as long as filmmakers like.
