Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: BumbleBee (2018)

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Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 12-09-2018, 12:20 AM:

CINEMA: Megaplex at Jordan Commons, Sandy, UT
AUDITORIUM: 19, SEAT: D8
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema DLP with standard stadium seating
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Screaming baby
RATING: Two and one half stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: Let's pretend Michael Bay never happened. Wackiness ensues.

So apparently they're doing an "early access screening event" for this, which I stumbled upon completely by accident the other day and thought "Why not." So here I am, sitting in a house with traditional seats packed to the rafters, next to a massive huge guy whose arm takes up our entire shared arm rest and part of my seat space too. Thankfully, my other seat neighbor is a small kid who doesn't take up much space at all.

Remember the low budget action flicks of the eighties where high stakes things happened and kids inexplicably broke into military installations and saved the day? This is EXACTLY one of those. Maybe not even as well done. It couldn't hold a candle to "Wargames". It's not even on the level of Bay's first Transformers movie.

But the kids...the little kids...ate this up. They LOVED it. Teens? I don't think so. Adults? Hey...you can make a drinking game out of spotting the wide open plot holes. You'll be so smashed by the end you'll need a cab to get home.

There were no trailers. There was a brief "Making Of" feature, and a plea by bad guy John Cena to "tell your friends if you really like it." There was also a promise of another "making of" feature after the credits, but I didn't stick around.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-10-2019, 10:55 AM:

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to.

Plot holes? Who cares about plot holes. For this movie, the style is the important thing and it's an 80's style sci fi actioner -- why worry about plausibility when you can have a kid saving the universe from her garage?

I'm not a particular fan of the whole Transformers thing, but I think Bumblebee is pretty darn good.

It's fun and it's silly; there's lots of action and it even has some mean girls in it to pick on the heroine. What's not to like?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-10-2019, 01:25 PM:

Is it as loud and bombastic as the other Transformers movies? From the trailers it seems to have more humor and less frantic action...?

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 01-10-2019, 07:42 PM:

It's visually frenetic because the graphical style changes rapidly at times, and less from action/camera motion (not that there's a lack of either). It's a bit much but (in my opinion) not the mindless drubbing we were subjected to by the latter Transformers.

Posted by Justin Hamaker (Member # 2165) on 01-10-2019, 09:53 PM:

Mike, Bumblebee has it's moments where it's just loud fight sequences. But it is a much smaller story than the previous Transformers, and the robot fight sequences are a much smaller part of the movie. I have hated every Transformers movie since the first one, but I really enjoyed Bumblebee.

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 01-11-2019, 04:50 PM:

<derp>
Sorry, I posted above in the wrong topic!!! Way to go, Bill...
</derp>

Posted by Bill Brandenstein (Member # 7758) on 01-12-2019, 03:09 PM:

Saw this with the whole family last night. Cussing and a particular few of bits of violence are why this is PG-13, which is to say, this at its heart is a kids movie (older kids) but won't bore the parents. It's a mild PG-13.

And Mike's opinion is exactly like ours. There are some frenetic sequences, but overall the movie's plot, tone, and action sequences are all superior to the original Michael Bay series.

Interesting that Travis Knight brought this Bumblebee to life, whose previous successes include breathing life into lifeless stop-motion objects in ParaNorman and Kubo and the Two Strings.