From the franchise's animated beginnings through 2018's prequel installment and soft reboot
Bumblebee, get ready to relive all the highs and lows of one of Hollywood's most successful
film series.
Let's see how all the theatrically released Transformers movies stack up against each
other.
Transformers: The Last Knight is a troubling movie.
Sure, there are scattered flashes of brilliance, like the scene when Megatron negotiates the
release of his crewmates, which does a great job of showing the unique personalities of
the characters.
It also has a cohesive tone that cleverly leans on the humorous absurdity of transforming
robots interacting with humans, and features some really striking, dynamic camera shots
that make every moment visually engaging.
However, the film's good scenes are vastly outnumbered by bad ones, thanks to its bizarre
storyline, which entangles the history of the Transformers with the Knights of the Round
Table.
This central cog of the plot doesn't make a lick of sense and retroactively undoes things
we've seen in the previous four movies, showing the writers couldn't care less about the series'
story up to this point.
And those aren't the only quality control issues in the film.
There are actual shots that made it into the final cut that have cameramen in them.
The aspect ratio constantly changes because no one bothered to consider that a constantly
changing border might be distracting to viewers.
Some central characters are completely useless, and major plot points are consistently underdeveloped
and lazily executed, like Bumblebee's and Optimus' climactic face-off.
In short, most of The Last Knight represents a sloppily produced missed opportunity.
Transformers: Age of Extinction's human characters all lack compelling motivation and have personalities
that range from infuriatingly annoying to painfully cringeworthy.
And the insufferable humans get the lion's share of screen time because, besides Optimus
and Bumblebee, no Transformer gets a real spotlight.
Take the dinobots, for example.
This movie promoted the heck out of them, and yet they're only in the final 30 minutes
of the film, and even then, only in a few big shots.
The plot is another problem, since it undoes much of the story that the previous three
Transformers movies established.
It's not done in a crafty way, either, the movie just presents its retroactive changes
to the series' continuity and pretends no one will notice.
This movie really puts the "stink" in "extinction."
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a tricky one.
Although critics absolutely blasted it, fans remain divided.
On one hand, it has the allure of Megan Fox's Mikaela Banes and goofball charm of Shia LaBeouf's
Sam Witwicky.
It also features a lot of top-tier CGI action and epic fights, such as the forest battle
when Optimus Prime dies defending against multiple Decepticons.
Plus, as is guaranteed with any Michael Bay film, the cinematography is as stylish and
stereotypically "Hollywood" as it gets.
For fans of pretty actors, likable enough characters, gorgeous cinematography, and mind-numbingly
bombastic action, there's a lot to love in Revenge of the Fallen.
However, this movie is also loaded with a lot of not-so-great elements.
The plot contradicts itself constantly, some of the characters, both human and robot, are
pretty obnoxious, there's a lot of crude and unnecessary humor, and the tone oscillates
between serious action-drama and juvenile comedy too clumsily for anything to be taken
seriously, or humorously.
Blame the farting airplane-robot.
With that in mind, if you just want some incredible CGI action featuring transforming robots,
both of the farting and non-farting variety, Revenge of the Fallen can still be a fun time.
Though it fails to hold up by today's standards for animated sci-fi flicks, when observed
as a relic of 1986 and an ode to the Transformers toys, Transformers: The Movie does a solid
job.
Beyond its fan-pleasing, ultra-expansive cast of transforming robots, it has other merits,
such as its plot.
This movie's story goes to some very Game of Thrones-like places in a way that's wholly
befitting of the Transformers' perpetual civil war.
Though some might find it to be a bit dark, a lot of fans really love that this is the
one Transformers movie that dared to take risks with its plot beats, putting beloved
Transformers' lives on the line to keep stakes high and maintain the realism of war.
For all these pros, there's no getting around the fact that the movie has issues.
Its animation quality is often weak, the soundtrack is infused with too much cheesy rock for its
own good, and the plot fails to articulate certain points in smart, digestible ways.
Still, the movie is a solid '86 Transformers time capsule.
It's got a great voice cast, cool robots, it explores surprisingly risky themes, overall,
it sports many or most of the key ingredients that helped get the Transformers franchise
where it is today.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon marked the first time the franchise really dug deep into
historical revisionism for plot points, and it remains the only time it's panned out well.
The plot uses moon landing conspiracy theories to its advantage and weaves them into Transformers
lore in a way that's both smart and compelling, giving characters from the previous two movies
new information that organically feeds into new missions and character arcs.
Plus, the finale is basically just one hour of breathtaking, uninterrupted robot carnage,
for those who only care about seeing Optimus fly a jetpack, swing a sword, and stab robots
left and right.
Dark of the Moon hits all of Michael Bay's usual beats: pretty stars, hot cars, incredible
camerawork, breathtaking scope, insane action, and lots of explosions.
But this movie, unlike some of Bay's others, backs all of those things up with real heart,
real characters, and real storytelling.
Plus, the CGI is outstanding and the soundtrack is killer.
Many casual moviegoers and film critics would agree that Michael Bay's first foray into
the Transformers universe remains his best.
2007's Transformers is a narratively tight movie that keeps its action, plot, and characters
all firmly planted within our reality, though it also leans heavily on the humorous nature
of its central sci-fi premise.
In this sense, it's almost a Marvel movie: fun, minimal on melodrama, loaded with quirky,
likable characters that operate within a believable yet fantastical universe, and inoffensive.
Well, relatively inoffensive:
"Hey hey!"
"Bumblebee, stop lubricating the man."
Back in 2007, Transformers set a new bar for creativity and polish in Hollywood visual
effects, which remains one of this movie's biggest merits and a key part of why it's
remembered so fondly.
But it's also beloved for being the starting point of an engaging trilogy centered around
Shia LaBeouf, Optimus Prime, and Bumblebee getting into wacky adventures together, with
Shia as the relatable stand-in for every kid who's always wanted to meet a Transformer
in real life.
For many people, Bumblebee is likely to be the most pleasing Transformers movie to date.
Though the Michael Bay movies attempted to make everything as cool as possible, Bumblebee
takes a step back and focuses almost exclusively on injecting relatable emotion into the performance
and arc of its titular robot and lead cast.
Spectacle is secondary in Bumblebee, and though that's going to require a substantial gear-shift
for fans of the previous films to fully appreciate, it's an interesting breath of fresh air for
the franchise.
Director Travis Knight's style revolves around sensitivity and nuance, and he handles the
film's social and interpersonal dynamics with a delicacy and care rarely seen in Hollywood
blockbusters.
That alone makes this a more easily digestible film than most of the other Transformers flicks.
That's why Bumblebee reigns supreme over its competition: it may not indulge in the pure
over-the-top action of the Bay-helmed installments, but it's definitely a bit more innocent, as
well as a good deal more human.
"God I'm so screwed."
And for a viewing audience that's entirely human, it turns out those qualities really
matter.