Bumblebee Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

The Transformers film fans have been waiting for for decades.

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Up until this point, the Transformers franchise was essentially damaged goods.

For the past eleven years, Michael Bay has continuously raked this beloved property through the mud with increasingly insulting live-action films that started out mediocre and grew flat-out hateful and spiteful of the very material they were adapting.

Though he'd been stating ever since 2009 that he was leaving the franchise, Bay kept coming back for every installment of the franchise.

Until now, that is.

With Bumblebee, Bay is finally gone and for the first time ever, audiences are about to get a Transformers film that truly feels like Transformers. While it certainly isn't without its flaws, Bumblebee is lightyears ahead of anything Bay ever did with the property and is a giant step in the right direction for the franchise...

First the negatives...

Downs

4. Too Much Of Too Many Side Characters

Paramount Pictures

One of the more persistent and remaining negatives of the Bay films was the way in which Bay loved to focus on excessive amounts of side characters for cheap attempts at humor. Think Sam Witwicky's parents in the first three films or Wheelie in any of the later films; characters who had nothing to the proceedings yet are continuously shoved down the audience's throat.

The new film certainly isn't anywhere near as big of an offender in this department as all of the previous films were, but the problem is still very much there. The film's narrative bends over backward at times to keep including the hijinks of side characters like Charlie's family or her friend Memo, when they really don't add much of anything to the film.

In fact, the core relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee is so strong that being continuously pulled away from it to focus on these bland attempts at Bay-ish comedy becomes incredibly frustrating.

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Contributor

A film enthusiast and writer, who'll explain to you why Jingle All The Way is a classic any day of the week.