“Bumblebee”

We have had 5 previous Transformer movies and aside from the first movie, which I thought was terrific entertainment, these movies have gotten increasingly tougher to sit through. The second movie “Revenge of the Fallen” can only be described as noise pollution. It was a mess. The other 3 movies were no prize either, but at least they were somewhat coherent. Fortunately, Bumblebee is a back to basics prequel much more inline to the first movie. It’s a very nice balance of action, humor, sweetness & more importantly, fun. Halee Steinfeld finds the yellow car all beat up in a junk yard after it got sent to Earth on a mission from the Autobots. The two of them form a partnership, much like Shia Lebouef did in the original. Steinfeld’s character is a sad sack and the car brings her a new sense of purpose and joy. She later learns that she needs to keep the car safe as a couple of Decepticons are on his tail, as well as the military. The story is pretty straight forward and the action is simplistic and makes sense. After a goofy King Arthur version of Transformer, this was a nice change of pace. The film has heart and a sense of joy, which was missing form the last 4 films. I liked it.

Rating: (***)