Transformers has definitely had a lot of films over the years. The original animated one was excellent but then the live action ones have tended to have a lot of issues for the most part. This one’s here to take us in a new direction and on one hand it’s got a pretty grand plot. On the other hand the fights are severely lacking compared to the old ones so that’s something that I’m hoping can improve pretty soon for the next one. It’s also probably a good idea to not cut out the best scene in the movie.

The film starts with the Maximals being under attack by an incredibly powerful fighter named Scourge. He isn’t a Decepticon nor an Autobot but a Terracon who works for Unicron. He effortlessly destroys one of the fighters and proves why he is a threat to be reckoned with. We then cut to Noah who is our lead here. He’s around some bad influences and once he doesn’t make the cut for the job he applied to, he resorts to a life of crime. Things don’t go well though as the car he tries to steal ends up being an Autobot and he is taken to their base. They want him to take some kind of artifact from a museum and then he can go on his way but the Terracons know about this and want it as well. Can the Autobots take Scourge down and save the planet or will they all be eaten by Unicron?

Okay so lets go with the good, the bad, and the ugly. To start with I will say that the humans plot is handled a lot more gracefully than in older films. None of the characters are pervs, there’s not a ton of comedy running around, and they’re all decent. I wouldn’t say any of the characters are particularly interesting but the plot is played very seriously the whole time and Noah feels like a real character. Perhaps a bit too “real” though as he’s quick to be ready to betray the Autobots even as we get near the end of the film. He’s not someone to be trusted. Now his motivations were reasonable as he wanted to protect his family but betraying the robots is not a great call.

Meanwhile Elena is solid as well. Her boss is always stealing credit and so she hasn’t been able to move up. Perhaps this whole experience can help her finally make a name for herself….provided she survives this at least. I would say the best part of the human plot would definitely be the after credits scene for the film. It’s definitely an excellent moment and gets you hyped for the future. So that’s something the film definitely did really well there. I’d have probably thrown in an extra character or something but there’s a lot of possibilities here.

The robot designs are also on point. Scourge looks really strong right out of the gate. He works well as the main villain and is probably the best villain out of all the live action Transformers villains. The guy has presence and you can feel his power. Optimus Prime has a great personality as well. Like in the Bayverse films this Prime is very bloodthirsty and just wants to destroy everyone. The film cut out his best scene involving this but the guy wasn’t playing around. Prime should be desperate to get back home and stop the villains after all the deaths so the characterization makes a whole lot of sense.

Okay so those are the main positive elements of the film. Now lets talk about some of the negatives here. For the first thing, the fights just aren’t good. They aren’t just the weakest Transformers fights but I would say they are weak movie fights in general. A lot of the times you’re just looking at a quick tackle, a stab, and then the fight is over. That or they’re just blasting each other a while. There’s never a sense of just how strong or weak someone is because they all look really fragile in battle. A good example of this is how effortlessly Prime was defeated by Scourge.

In practice it makes a lot of sense. You want to show how good Scourge is so you clown on Prime a bit but the execution was way off. It just made Prime look like a chump as opposed to making Scourge look like a champ and that’s really my main problem here. It’s absolutely not the way to go about this and there’s now weight to the battles. You have Noah blasting away at Scourge later on and distracting him while the guy was no selling hits from Prime? The power levels were too wonky and yet too one sided at the same time. So even when you had the rest of the robots getting involved it didn’t really do anything for me.

The visuals are good of course but the actual fights were definitely below average. The soundtrack’s also extremely weak but for a movie that’s not a huge deal. You mostly don’t even notice the music in these things anyway. Of course it’d be nice if it was a lot better but I’m just saying I wasn’t expecting a whole lot either way. So the movie has good pacing and you’re engaged during it but you feel a bit sad because the whole Unicron experience can only happen once and now we’ve already used it up. At least the opening battles with Scourge and we can’t get those back again.

Ultimately I just think a bit of a problem here is that without big fights the film can be a little more on the forgettable side. I know everything that happened with the story beats and all but for example I couldn’t tell you quite as much about the individual robots. Of course we had Bumblebee around and he did great near the climax but there wasn’t much to him if you take away the knowledge you already have. Same with most of the other robots as only Mirage got a ton to do.

Now I will say even if on average the fights weren’t top tier, the visual of Bumblebee getting taken out was pretty intense. You will still have some major doubts on the heroes looking so bad there of course but it’s still something that you won’t forget. There is also something to be said for this being a well written film of course. It’s a good title and while it doesn’t have a lot of replay value it definitely did more good things than bad ones. I’d be able to confidently say that I’m a fan of the film, it just has potential to be so much more. I think it’s time to bring in Megatron in the next film for some kind of big team up. Especially with the new characters who will be showing up soon since in theory they should absolutely decimate the Autobots in a straight fight.

Overall, Transformers is always a fun movie to watch. This one does have a lot of action and thrilling scenes. I like seeing the robots smashing each other to bits but it just slacked off on the actual battles a little too hard. The most important thing is the story of course and that’s on point but I really did want some big battles here. A battle with giant robots should always be supremely engaging and if it isn’t then something went terribly wrong. This is not the way that it was supposed to go….not at alllllllll. Also if you’re here for the Maximals, don’t be. There’s a reason why I went the whole review without even mentioning them and that’s because they are completely pointless to the story. They add nothing. None of them are interesting. We don’t even get a proper fight between them and the Autobots. It’s just like how the Dinobots were wasted, I can safely say that these guys were completely wasted too. That said, I am hyped for the sequel and will absolutely be there right away. I’ve still got pretty high hopes there.

Overall 6/10