Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
The seventh instalment in the cinematic rip-off of the Hasbro toy range returns for more Armageddon and metallic excess.
Heavy metal: Arcee, Optimus Prime and Bumblebee
Amazingly, there’s this portal that can lead into another realm. And in order to harness the untold power on the other side, the dark god Unicron needs the two halves of a special key to breach the space-time continuum. In spite of all the worlds in all the galaxies of the universe, the two halves of the key, the Transwarp, have happened to end up on planet Earth, one half in New York and the other in Peru. This may sound like a far-fetched premise, but in the multiverse of the multiplex it is hardly a new one. Portals are opening up all over the place and their space-time continuum continually penetrated by evil characters bent on total domination. You see, in the world of sci-fantasy, big egos are big.
Talking of big, the Transformers franchise has always favoured size over content and as Rise of the Beasts is the seventh instalment, size is everything. This dark deity Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo, impersonating James Earl Jones) feeds on entire worlds, slurping the lifeblood out of them like a child sucking on a crème egg. But he won’t be really content until he’s got the entire multiverse to gorge on, which is obscenely greedy. Cut to New York in the year 1994 and we meet two fresh faces, both struggling with more mundane matters. There’s Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), an ex-military electronics expert, who can’t seem to get a job to help support his mother and poorly brother. And there’s Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), who works as an intern at a museum and is constantly undermined by her air-headed boss. Both deserve better but really don’t deserve what they get when they are inadvertently thrust into the path of a herd of outsize robots scrambling to retrieve that Transwarp…
The trailer for the first Transformers (2007) was pretty cool, where we see a Chevrolet transformed into a giant monolithic robot. Here we have plenty of the same, but once the two new human leads have been sidelined by the demands of the overblown plot, the nonstop clash of screeching metal becomes about as dramatically invigorating as watching two eight-year-olds smashing their Dinkys together. Rise of the Beasts is fun in bits, but the real head-turner is the locale of ancient Peru, where various Inca monuments of enormous archaeological value are demolished in the name of popcorn escapism. The CGI-rendered skyscape of 1994 New York is pretty cool, too, complete with the soaring twin towers of the late World Trade Center. New York has suffered many ignominies at the hand of Hollywood, but the sight of the city covered in smoke was a little too close for comfort in light of the events of this week.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Luna Lauren Vélez, Dean Scott Vazquez, Tobe Nwigwe, Sarah Stiles, Michael Kelly; and the voices of Colman Domingo, Peter Cullen, Ron Perlman, Peter Dinklahe, Michelle Yeoh, Pete Davidson, Liza Koshy, John DiMaggio.
Dir Steven Caple Jr, Pro Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Michael Bay, Mark Vahradian and Duncan Henderson, Ex Pro Steven Spielberg, Screenplay Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber, Ph Enrique Chediak, Pro Des Sean Haworth, Ed Joel Negron and William Goldenberg, Music Jongnic Bontemps, Costumes Ciara Whaley, Sound Ethan Van der Ryn, Erik Aadahl and Matt Hall.
Skydance Media/Hasbro/New Republic Pictures/Di Bonaventura Pictures/Bay Films-Paramount Pictures.
126 mins. USA. 2023. UK and US Rel: 9 June 2023. Cert. 12A.
