Bumblebee ** (2018, Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr, John Cena) – Movie Review

Director Michael Bay and star Mark Wahlberg having called time’s up after Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), the rebooted Bumblebee (2018) is a slick but tepid attempt to prolong the Transformers franchise past its sell-by date.

As dithering teen Memo, Jorge Lendeborg Jr gets the useless sidekick role previously reserved for women, while the 21-year-old Hailee Steinfeld plays the star boy’s role of Charlie, a tomboyish teenage girl who wants a car for the 18th birthday in 1987, but her parents have other (silly) ideas – a helpful crash hat, a helpful book.

Actually, proper script respect for both women and men would be nice in movies. And, by the way, we seem to be in 1987 in Bumblebee just to play some old pop tunes on the soundtrack, just like Guardians of the Galaxy. All this is very slack and lazy.

So Charlie finds an old yellow VW Beetle in Uncle Hank (Len Cariou)’s junkyard in a small Californian beach town and he offers it to her for her birthday. However, it turns out to be the Transformer Bumblebee come to Earth on a planet saving expedition (not ours of course, that is impossible even n a fantasy movie) and is pursued by two mean other Transformers intended to put it out of business for ever.

Executive producer Steven Spielberg obviously liked Christina Hodson’s story and screenplay – it is very like his own E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial: girl befriends cute alien which eventually has to go home, as tears mix with sentimentality and of course action and adventure and fantasy. Disney probably like the story too, as it is very like their own The Love Bug, playing especially like the Lindsay Lohan reboot Herbie Fully Loaded (2005). Me, I liked it a lot less. The core story is very silly and sentimental, and the movie very girly, definitely aimed at tolerant teenage girls and their moms. They have even made Bumblebee ‘cute’ and ‘cuddly’ – a giant metal toy! I ask you!

John Cena does his best as ridiculously stereotyped Agent Burns, but he has hardly any funny lines to make it work, then crumbles at the end by becoming pro Bumblebee. Lendeborg would be good if he had more to do and better stuff to do. Pamela Adlon and Stephen Schneider are pretty annoying as the parents Sally and Ron, but then those are the roles as written, and Jason Drucker (last seen in Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul) is a smug irritant as little brother Otis, though most of that is the role too. These are not good parts or decently written characters.

That just leaves the action, which is all well-staged CGI, which it should be on a budget of $135,000,000, and it is visually impressive. But, hey, been there, done that, got the T shirt and moved on. Now Transformers needs to move on. It can find permanent refuge in Uncle Hank (Len Cariou)’s junkyard.

In the UK there are both the PG edited version and 12A uncut version. The
edited version is very strong for a PG, with a violent tone and considerable violence.

Director Travis Knight previously directed the animation Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). 

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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