It’s not stopping any time soon as more Transformers films are sprouting out from the ground. This time it’s a little different, this time it’ll focus on the character, car, robot, alien.. thing: Bumblebee. The film is called Bumblebee and the teaser trailer recently dropped, hinting at something that previous Transformers film don’t seem to emphasize, the bond between man and machine… that line was in the trailer. It looks like the film will be much smaller and perhaps more personal as it follows the story of a teenage girl buying a seemingly ordinary Volkswagen Beetle, only to find out well, it isn’t.
Starring Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Pamela Adlon and a supporting cast of mostly unknowns, this would be the first Transformers film to not be directed by Michael Bay. Instead, Bumblebee will be directed by Travis Knight, known for his work in critically acclaimed animated film, Kubo and the Two Strings. This would be Knight’s second film, Kubo being his directorial and it’s safe to say that Bay shouldn’t come too close to this one if Knight is looking to make a ‘good’ Transformers film.
The Transformers films have not been well received by critics with Rotten Tomatoes scores ranging from 16% (Transformers: The Last Knight) to 57% (Transformers). The latter of which can be argued to be the only decent one. They have made plenty of money though with two out of the five films earning over a billion dollars at the world-wide box-office. The latest film released, The Last Knight grossed the lowest in the series earning about $605.4 million at the box-office.
Following the reception and box-office receipts of The Last Knight, one would assume that this series is done but well, clearly they’re not. The change of directors on the other hand does indicate a different approach however. This time around, the film will be set in 1987 and it looks to focus on Bumblebee and Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeild) along with an emphasis on their relationship. It does however, include another Decepticon in the teaser, presumably Starscream.
Although, the teaser does include some action and the film no doubt will, it looks like it’ll be much smaller in scale than the previous film. This, coupled with a modest (for a Transformers film) budget of $102 million along with the small town setting does indicate the film going away from its roots of city-wide destruction.
The trailer does feature some fairly cheesy moments and some usual Transformers bulls**t such as another marine, military person, agent… you get it, played by John Cena. Charlie does seem to provide some lines that don’t really sound too great, at least without context of the scene. It does follow the tradition of teenage protagonists wearing band merchandise with Charlie’s Motorhead tank top drawing comparison to Sam’s Strokes t-shirt.
With a good director and a smaller scale, maybe this one could be it.
