Bumblebee (2018)

Director: Travis Knight

Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Cena

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small California beach town. On the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, Charlie Watson discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken.

After that dreadful ‘Transformers: The Last Knight’, I was kind of hoping the franchise had come to an end. And along comes ‘Bumblebee’ – a prequel.

The film starts looking like a video game. This completely unnecessary prequel felt like I was watching the visualization of a rushed script still in draft stages. It was cliche upon cliche with oh-so-typical American characters and offered nothing new to the franchise. The series is so done! Just like the new ‘Ghostbusters’, they take the female approach to the film, with Charlie replacing the Sam Witwicky character. Same old, same old…

‘Bumblebee’ can easily be confused as a ‘Transformers’ spoof due the the amount of stupid moments and silly humor, which wasn’t funny by the way. There are moments they wanted us to think Bumblebee was going to die, but it was ineffective, as we already know he survives since he’s in all the sequels. So, there was nothing suspenseful about it. This is a prequel after all, duh!!

Hailee Steinfeld did an ok job as Charlie. The rest of the cast was forgettable, really. It was hardly worth casting John Cena, as he was a very weak character who contributed nothing to the film. This was incredibly cheesy and sentimental with silly dialogue. Yawn. Please end this…

Interestingly enough, this installment is the highest rated by critics, yet fared the worst at the box office. Wow, critics, that’s saying a lot…(again).