There is a genuine, juvenile giddiness that came over me when the Maximals first came on screen, and that’s something I won’t apologize for. Gigantic transforming animals just bring out the little kid in all of us, you know?

Director Steven Caple Jr. seems to know, as he put together a film that seems to appeal more to our inner child rather than our inner hormonal teenager.

The Maximals are the new draw of course and visually they don’t disappoint. With patches of fur mixed in with their metal frames, they are very distinct from the shiny metallic Autobots. Ron Pearlman’s deep, rumbling voice is perfect for the Maximal leader Optimus Primal and pairs well with Peter Cullen’s equally baritone voice for Optimus Prime.

Meanwhile, Michelle Yeoh is unmistakable as the calm and collected Air Razor, however, Peter Dinklage is unrecognizable as Scourge. Not that he did a bad job but his voice is so altered that I was shocked to read his name in the credits at the end.

The story is as cookie-cutter as you can get, with a new threat to be stopped and a new artifact of the week, with new allies thrown in for good measure. There is nothing life-changing or transformative (pun intended) about this, and that is perfectly fine.

As entertaining and fun as Rise of the Beasts is, there are some little nagging bits that, if corrected, could have made for a better experience. Optimus Prime is far from the compassionate father figure, at least for most of the film. For younger viewers this may not be a thing, but for those who grew up with the robot version of Abe Lincoln, it is distractingly out of character.

Speaking of character, sadly you don’t get to know much about the robots, as much of the focus is on the humans. Not nearly enough time was spent exploring the Maximals, and I will bet good money Rhinox only had a couple of lines.

Mirage (played by Peter Davidson) is really the only other Autobot with any sort of personality, being somewhat immature and hungry for friends after hiding out and being inconspicuous for so many years. His interactions with the human Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos), brings a lot of welcome humor into the movie.

There is a sort of consensus among fans that the Transformers movies have just been going downhill since the second installment, and a lot of the blame, rightfully or not, gets laid at the feet of director Michael Bay. His approach seems to have been that bigger is better, That only took the movies so far, as viewers interest sort of plateaued at best, and at worst, many were downright fatigued.

Then along came Bumblebee in 2018 and course corrected the series, dialing down the laser fire and explosions and turning up some character. Rise of the Beasts takes place after Bumblebee in their own little continuity, opting to start fresh apart from the previous movies.

The Rise of the Beasts continues on the path that Bumblebee started, and tries to bring a bit more sense and story into the Transformers universe. For the most part, it does. It won’t win any awards aside perhaps for visual effects, but it is still worth a watch. There is more of a Saturday-morning cartoon vibe to it than the previous films, and that is a big plus. Nothing too
serious, but a lot of fun.

Also, you can’t really go wrong with Optimus Prime commanding the Autobots to “Roll Out!”, and Optimus Primal calling for the Maximals to “Maximize!” It is a definite crowd pleaser.