Optimus Prime is a Narc and Other Observations, Humorous and Otherwise, on Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

That dude sucks

Transformers: Rise of the Beast 

Since the release of 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight two things have happened that have changed the way I thought about the franchise. 

In 2018 a Transformers spin-off was released called Bumblebee that proved in spite of AMPLE evidence to the contrary that it IS possible for a movie based on an iconic line of violent toys for children to be legitimately good. 

All you had to do was eject Michael Bay from the director’s seat and feel like an actual Steven Spielberg movie from the 1980s instead of movies that were Executive Produced by Spielberg yet feel almost nothing like his work. 

Spielberg may have producing credits all over this lucrative series of vulgar garbage movies for babies but Bumblebee was the first one to actually feel Spielbergian. Bumblebee alone conveyed an appropriate sense of awe and wonder over the arrival of a shape-shifting space alien on this kooky rock we call earth. 

Bumblebee illustrated that with the right spirit and the right people, Transformers movies didn’t necessarily have to be soulless, clattering, elephantine exercises in empty spectacle and unhinged commercialism. They could actually be, you know, GOOD instead of bad. 

The other thing that changed the way that I saw the Transformers series was learning that in the 1980s frightmaster Stuart Gordon became fascinated by Transformers toys and intrigued by their cinematic possibilities. 

Gordon wasn’t able to make an official Transformers movie happen so he instead made Robot Jox, a cult movie very much inspired by the Hasbro toys. 

Before Bumblebee I wondered if it was even possible for a Transformers movie to not suck. Now that I know that it’s possible for a Transformers movie to rock I have raised my expectations for them from lower than the ocean’s floor to merely exceedingly modest. 

The Transformers franchise would be a guilty pleasure for me except that it’s long on guilt and short on actual pleasure. I do appreciate how transcendently stupid the movies can be. In The Last Knight, for example, we learn that Harriet Tubman was an ally and friend of the Transformers from a character played by Anthony Hopkins. 

And I appreciate that because of the films’ staggering budgets they can afford to hire literally any great character actor in the world to pop up for fifteen minutes of mugging for an obscene amount of money. 

Stanley Tucci, for example, has played two different characters in the franchise: wily operator Joshua Joyce and the Wizard Merlin. Yes, THE Wizard Merlin. 

These movies are generally VERY dumb but that alone is not enough to save them. I regret to inform you that with the underwhelming Transformers: Rise of the Beasts the series has returned to a state of noisy, busy mediocrity. 

What’s frustrating about Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is that it clearly learned some of the right lessons from Bumblebee but not enough. 

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts figured out that a lot of the series appeal is nostalgic in nature and that adults who grew up on the cartoons in the 1980s would appreciate it if Transformers movies had something to offer them as well.

Like Bumblebee, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is a period piece set in 1994 and rooted in the music and pop culture of the era in which it takes place. 

Bumblebee reached me as a Gen-Xer by feeling like the fantastical movies I grew up loving rather than the cynical corporate product of today. Transformers: Rise of the Beast pandered relentlessly to me and my generation by opening with a wall-to-wall soundtrack of Native Tongues and Native Tongues-adjacent Hip Hop from the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

The Transformers: Rise of the Beast soundtrack was pushing all of my nostalgia buttons and, in the process, all of my pleasure buttons as well. For a hot minute there I thought it was at least possible that the film’s climax might take place during the 1994 Smokin’ Grooves festival, possibly while Cypress Hill was onstage performing “How I Could Just Kill a Man.” 

For a good half hour or so all this ridiculous movie had to do was recycle beloved hits from my adolescence to make me happy, or at least content. It didn’t need to be a good movie; it just had to keep on playing songs I love, and that everyone else does as well because they’re incontrovertibly great.

Then Transformers: Rise of the Beast forgets that its greatest strengths is, strangely but wonderfully enough, a dope Hip Hop soundtrack and the hits stop coming after the first act.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts opens with a prologue involving the home world of a race of shape-shifting android/animal hybrids known as the Maximals being invaded by the sinister forces of Unicron, a dark god so powerful that he devours planets. 

The Maximals use a MacGuffin called a Transwarp Key to escape to planet Earth, , one step ahead of Unicron and his malevolent minions. 

These sequences lean hard on two of the series greatest weaknesses. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has way more mythology, exposition and convoluted plot than is at all necessary. 

That means that Rise of the Beasts is constantly attending to the needs of a plot you could not pay me enough money to fully understand, let alone care about. 

The other great weakness of the series that this opening embodies is a bizarre and deeply unfortunate propensity for taking itself, its themes and its characters very seriously when, and I shouldn’t need to repeat this THIS IS A FILM SERIES ABOUT SHAPE SHIFTING ROBOT CARS FROM OUTER SPACE BASED ON TOYS. 

Bumblebee had an appropriately light, goofy tone that Rise of the Beasts makes intermittent attempts to recapture but otherwise this is defiantly un-fun in much the same way previous entries in the series were. 

Rise of the Beasts follows Bumblebee in eschewing a problematic rich white straight movie star in the lead in pair of younger, more diverse leads played by lesser known actors. 

Anthony Ramos stars as Noah Diaz, a Hispanic ex-military man caring for a brother with a very expensive case of Sickle Cell Anemia who stumbles into the world of the Transformers when a car he’s boosting unexpectedly comes alive and starts doing shtick. 

The car in question is named Mirage. I did not recognize his voice without consulting Wikipedia but figured that he was probably the hot comedian of the day picking up a paycheck from the Michael Bay factory. 

The car with a WHOLE lot of attitude, sass and shenanigans is in fact voiced by legendary lady’s man and ubiquitous funny man Pete Davidson who is, in fact, the hot funnyman of the day if the fact that he’s cast in everything and is in the newspaper every day is any indication. 

I like Davidson, within reason. He seems like a good guy and genuinely talented but there’s only so much anyone can do voicing a wacky robot car in a Transformers movie and Mirage is less a scene stealing fan favorite than a character to be grudgingly tolerated rather than enjoyed. 

The other more diverse lead is a Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), an African American woman who works as an intern at a museum and discerns that an artifact in its collection has an origin beyond human imagination. 

Elena and Noah head down to South America with the Autobots to square off against the nefarious Omicron and his warriors, most notably Scourge. 

Scourge is voiced by Peter Dinklage but they alter its pitch and process it so heavily that is impossible to recognize the actor’s voice. What’s the point of hiring famous people as VoiceOver artists if you’re going to alter their voices so heavily?

In South America our heroes join forces with the Primanimals, animal/robot hybrids from outer space. Because I am, objectively, very dumb, my inner child was excited about the prospect of robot-animals. 

How could robots who are also animals be anything short of awesome? Then again that’s how I felt about the Dinobots when I heard they were going to be in Transformers: Age of Extinction and they most assuredly were not awesome. 

I don’t want to seem negative but stupid shit that you think will look cool when you’re high and excessively optimistic almost invariably disappoints no matter how low your expectations are. 

It doesn’t help that the Maximals all seem to have the same dour personality as Optimus Prime. The leader, a giant robo-gorilla, is even named Optimal Prime in honor of the iconic Autobot. 

The makers of Rise of the Beasts don’t seem to realize that its heroes can have different, distinct and interesting personalities. They don’t seem aware that they can have personalities at all. 

After all, who needs characterization or jokes when you have Pete Davidson wisecracking up a storm in the recording booth? 

I don’t like the Transformers movies for a number of reasons but one of the main reasons I do not care for the series is because I hate Optimus Prime, the sonorous voiced exemplar of old-school macho who leads the Autobots and is just the fucking worst although I did amuse myself yesterday by saying random things in his booming bass voice, much to the annoyance of my 8 year old son Declan, who liked the movie a lot more than I did.

Why do I hate Optimus Prime? Here are just some reasons. 

Optimus Prime is a cop. 

Optimus Prime is a narc. 

Optimus Prime thinks that instead of celebrities like Taylor Swift people should idolizes first responders, veterans and police officers. 

Optimus Prime believes that All Lives Matter, including those of androids from outer space, and that the idea of Black Lives Matter is racist 

Optimus Prime thinks the Stand Your Ground Laws are a very good idea and misunderstood. 

Optimus Prime hasn’t chosen between Trump or DeSantis yet but he’s going to vote Republican the way he always does. 

Optimus Prime belongs to a Mega-Church and listens to Joel Osteen.

Optimus Prime is really into Kid Rock’s recent work. 

Optimus Prime posts boomer memes CONSTANTLY 

Optimus Prime has a LOT of feeling about trans athletes, none of them progressive. 

In conclusion, FUCK Optimus Prime and fuck this stupid movie.

Two Stars out of Four