Released in May 27, Transformers Rise of the Beast is another franchise soft reboot slash prequel, which was met with less than favorable critical reception.
Despite cool CGI battles, great voiceovers from Colman Domingo, Michelle Yeoh, Peter Dinklage, Ron Perlman and the legendary Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime, Rise of the Beasts shares the same problems as the previous Transformers movies..flawed writing.
Some Spoilers, so beware!
The story of how "one person can make a difference " (regarding Noah played by Anthony Ramos) is very tiring as with a few other cliches that I found problematic.
Pete Davidson’s dialogue as Mirage was cringe inducing and to top it off, he gives Noah (whose name is possibly a callback to the Autobots' ship, the Ark.) a device that turns him into "Iron Man."
After saving the world from Unicron as well as Optimus Prime, who comes off like some Edgelord who swings his battleax like Conan, Noah is being interviewed by a potential employer who out of nowhere, is familiar with what went down in Peru and revealed that his "company" is a Global Intervention Joint Operated Entity, get it?
Now while the ending was used to bring our "Real American Heroes" back into cinema, it would make more sense to have the characters from M.A.S.K., salvage the parts from both the Predicons and Decepticons then retrofit them into "transformation" vehicles as a means to battle the Decepticons and other world threats. Since Hasbro owns all three franchises so, why not throw in all three toy line factions into a series of sequels that will further establish the Hasbroverse?
Rise of Beasts has had its share of a few clever retro callbacks from Movie quotes, to needle drops. One In particular, may have slipped under most viewer's radar, while flying inside the Autobot Stratosphere, in cargo plane mode, Noah and Elena (Dominque Fishback) are shown sitting in the same placement as Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine during the ending cutscene from 1996's Resident Evil. What makes it more of a coincidence is how Elena is sitting on the right and leaning on Noah's shoulder...just like Jill and Chris.
Said scene comes off as a small homage to Capcom's popular Survival Horror PlayStation game which of course, was released during the mid-nineties, close to Rise of Beasts' setting.
Transformers Rise of the Beasts is now available for digital purchase or rental.
Read how I predicted the Hasbro Cinematic Universe based on an article, I published 10 years ago!