Bumblebee (Film Review)

2018 Paramount Pictures
Directed by: Travis Knight; Written by: Christina Hodson
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Jason Drucker, and Pamela Adlon
MPAA Rating: PG-13; Running Time: 114 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10

The summer of 2007 offered a cinematic boon for 1980's properties. The Simpsons finally got its own theatrical film. Die Hard rose from the grave. However, the film I had the most excitement for was based on a Hasbro toy line. Finally, after all these years, there would be a live-action Transformers film. Sure, the movie was to be directed by Michael Bay, but for all his admittedly mind-numbing excess, he'd made a few entertaining movies up to that point, and one, The Rock, is a bonafide action classic. Maybe, just maybe, his Transformers would be one of the good ones.
It isn't. It is abysmal. Bay could have simply presented 90-minutes of adequately filmed robot fights and hit par, but instead, he populates his yellow-tinted film with quick cuts of Megan Fox driving a tow truck around, military people rolling through rubble and making grim faces, and incoherent single frames of indistinguishable silver robots fighting other indistinguishable silver robots amidst incoherent cinematic geography. The only times Bay leaves an image on screen long enough for the human mind to register it either involves swooping shots of Megan Fox's abs, swooping shots of Shia Leboeuf farting, and flag porn. The movie is terrible. Somehow, since then, he's made three more that are even worse. Wait, he's made four more? Ugh.
Bumblebee is here 11 years later to Lysol that stench away. Hailee Steinfeld stars as Charlie, a teenaged girl mourning the loss of her father. It's 1987 now, Charlie's mother has moved on and re-married, and Charlie's little brother seems to fit right in with this new, happy family. Charlie, though, like the protagonist in just about every good teen dramedy, feels ostracized, doesn't fit in, and misses her father. On her 18th birthday, Charlie finds an old, busted Volkswagen Beetle in her gruff, but kindly uncle's junkyard. Turns out, however, that Beetle is more than meets the eye.
The previous paragraph proves I've buried the lede. While previous Transformers films firmly fall into the flaccid action category, with a little lousy drama tacked on, Bumblebee is an excellent teen dramedy, great action scenes integrated within. Charlie, whose summer has slipped into a dead-end, beach job grind, needs a friend. A mute, giant, anthropomorphic robot who can morph into a Volkswagen Beetle is just what she needs. It seems this robot, Bumblebee, is also out of place. His people...er, robots, were defeated in a civil war on a planet, far, far away, and Bumblebee has been sent by his leader to hang out and hide on Earth, until the rest of his surviving side can meet up with him to regroup.
Charlie and Bumblebee are kindred spirits of sorts, and end up partaking in all the wacky hijinks you'd expect, bonding over not fitting in and missing their families, egging Charlie's evil blond nemesis' house, and driving around the beautiful California coast, the prime 80's teen film location, while listening to one of the best compilations of 80's rock songs in recent memory. After all, this is a movie based around an 80's toy franchise.
Eventually, not only do some evil robots from the rival side hunt our speechless robotic hero down, but a trigger-happy army commander, played gamely by John Cena, is on his trail, as well. In true 80's flick fashion, Cena's not actually evil, and would be fighting with Bumblebee if only he understood the situation. In all honesty, while I was frequently reminded of movies from my childhood, particularly Harry and the Hendersons, released the same year in which this film takes place, Bumblebee more captures the spirit of those films, while uniquely standing apart. Bumblebee will make those who grew up in that decade, ramming their Autobot toys into their Decepticon toys, with Flight of the Navigator on in the background, nostalgic, but it doesn't just prey on and milk that nostalgia. Director, Travis Knight, and writer, Christina Hodson, have insured that Bumblebee is its own thing. It's got a huge beating heart in its chest, a unique human and robot duel-protagonist, and the smarts to clearly show how those two protagonists' time together helps restore them and make them better people...er, person and robot.
It also has better robot fight-scenes than any of the Bay films, even though the scale and stakes are much smaller. It helps that those stakes are more personal, but even more than that, the viewer can actually tell what is going on in the fights, the editing is clean, the spatial geography is clear, the events taking place are logical, and the smaller, relatively underpowered Bumblebee actually has to use some quick-thinking, in addition to his brawn.
Disappointed fans of this franchise haven't asked for much. We know this is based upon a line of toys. We don't need Citizen Kane. Just give us a decent story, and some good action. Finally, 11 years after that initial promise, Hollywood has delivered.