BUMBLEBEE

                       Bumblebee: Disruptive, Disjointed and Confused:

On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee the Autobot seeks refuge in a junkyard in a small California beach town. Charlie, on the brink of turning 18 years old and trying to find her place in the world, soon discovers the battle-scarred and broken Bumblebee. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns that this is no ordinary yellow Volkswagen.

First off Bumblebee is a spin-off cum origin story, one that did not really capture the essences of an origin story. One of the principal negatives about the movie is the fact that prior to arrival on Earth ,the Autobots on their planet Cybertron could already transform and assume the shapes of Automobiles and means of transport found only on Earth. It came off as very curious, since Optimus Prime himself mentioned that he has just discovered a planet called earth. Even the decepticons could transform into fighter jets and military helicopters( of Earth ). This alone totally smacked of a lack of creativity, and a dearth of proper script writer and developer.
  Having gotten that out of the way, let's get to the movie's storyline, plot and conflict elements. As in most instances, when there is a good storyline, you can expect a very good plot, if developed properly. On this occasion, not only was the storyline ridiculously poor, but the plot was even more poorly developed. The movie was caught between being a content for kids, and being one for adult audiences. The decision to put so much effort into building the character of Charlie and writing a very intriguing narrative around Charlie and Bumblebee created a situation of utter bemusement. The relatability of the narrative between both characters is just absurd, it's nothing short of incredulous and it was never close to being convincing at all.

  The conflict element in the movie was poorly developed. The input of the decepticons ought to have been scrapped at least until the very end, and then perhaps the Autobot Bumblebee will assume the relevance he was expected to command. The conflict element never really intrigued anybody, because expectedly the Decepticons were never going to pose a threat to earth, at least until the others arrived. It didn't offer up any plot twists, and the movie definitely was too flat to be impressive. The movie technically only delivered only one high point throughout its 1hr45mins Air time. Ridiculously poor.
  On the acting scene, in as much as I'd like to easily conclude that all actors involved in the project were just average and not exceptional, special mention must be made of John Cena, who was unable to really command the screen and ended up coming off as another WWE segment every time he was afforded screen time. His take on the part was too rigid, poorly delivered and disappointing.

   One of the positives of the movie however is the CGI in use, I was impressed and this also to an extent improved the fight scenes in the movie. This was especially so due to Bumblebee's fight style. Even though we are impressed with the fight scenes and all that, we must still however mention that one thing all transformers movies have failed to address and which also bedevilled this movie is getting rid of the messiness in fight scenes. The CGI dynamics have been unable to appropriately address and smoothen the fight sequences without them coming off as unnecessarily gritty and messy. Another big fail for 2019.
  In all it is a movie worth the watch if you can spare some few hours and the necessary data. It definitely was not cinema worthy and to the hardcore fans, it has not impressed or improved above the previous movies in the franchise. We felt the movie paid too much attention to writing a solid back story for Charlie and totally neglected Bumblebee to some extent ,even though they were both woven into the entire fabric of the movie. Another fail for scripting and story telling. 

And all of this is before we reveal that the most iconic moment from the movie did not occur with the titular character, but rather with Optimus Prime. Absurd!! 

Directed by Travis Knight
Produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom DeSanto, Don Murphy, Michael Bay, Mark Vahradian
Written by Christina Hodson
Based on Transformers by Hasbro
Starring
Hailee Steinfeld
John Cena
Jorge Lendeborg, Jr.
John Ortiz
Jason Drucker
Pamela Adlon

FCA's AppR: 6/19