In “Bumbleebee,” director Travis Knight and writer Christina Hodson went for cutesy and kiddish, riffing on ‘80s teen movies and turning the yellow Transformer into a cuddly golden retriever type, infusing the series with a sense of heart. Though his camera’s gaze at star Megan Fox was icky and leering at best, his approach to the mechanic spectacle of the Autobots was undeniably sensual. In the first couple of films (there were wildly diminishing returns in his five-film run), there was a certain sensory satisfaction in all that was shiny and chrome, the clicks and whirs of metallic pieces sliding into place with an almost ASMR-like tingle. Michael Bay’s “Transformers” movies brought an almost fetishistic approach to auto bodies he is a filmmaker who understands machines better than human beings. Thus, the two kids from Brooklyn have to team up with the Autobots to prevent Unicron and his minions the Terrorcons - including a particularly nasty one known as Scourge (Peter Dinklage) - from feasting on Earth and destroying the planet. Noah, an Army vet looking for work to support his sick younger brother, got caught up with the Autobots while trying to boost a snazzy Porsche, the Autobot Mirage, voiced by a surprisingly lively Pete Davidson. When an aspiring archaeologist, Elena (Dominique Fishback), accidentally uncovers half of the key hidden in an ancient Incan bird statue and triggers the beacon, the benevolent Autobots, stranded on Earth and led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), send their new human friend Noah (Anthony Ramos) to retrieve it. What does the key do? Honestly, who knows, it’s just the necessary thingamajig over which the primary players can scrabble and fight throughout a two-hour span. The basics are as such: a giant, planet-eating dark god known as Unicron needs a gleaming key that has been hidden by the Maximals (reminder, those are the beastie bots) in order to gobble as many planets as he’d like, Earth included. Got all that? It’s OK if you don’t, because the screenplay - by Joby Harold, Darnell Metayer, Josh Peters, Erich Hoeber and Jon Hoeber, with a story by Harold - will repeat the pertinent information ad nauseam, until you never want to hear the phrase “trans-warp key” ever again. “Rise of the Beasts,” set in 1994, is also based on the “Transformers: Beast Wars” media franchise of comic books and anime, which introduced the Maximal characters, alien robots that look like giant animals, not shape-shifting cars. It is now, astonishingly, seven films deep with the release of “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” which is both a prequel to “Transformers” and a sequel to 2018’s “Bumblebee,” which was set in 1987. You may have to select a menu option or click a button.The “Transformers” film franchise, spawned in 2007 with Michael Bay’s “Transformers,” was one of the first straight-faced blockbuster franchises based on a toy (and an ’80s cartoon series). Follow the instructions for disabling the ad blocker on the site you’re viewing.You may have more than one ad-blocker installed. You’ll usually find this icon in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. Click the icon of the ad-blocker extension installed on your browser.When it turns gray, click the refresh icon that has appeared next to it or click the button below to continue.
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