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In this much more family-oriented prequel to the 2007 Transformers movie, a teenaged girl named Charlie (True Grit‘s Hailee Steinfeld) repairs an old Volkswagen Beetle that turns out to be a Transformer scout named B-127. She nicknames him ‘Bumblebee’ and soon learns that he’s come to Earth to assess whether it would make a good home for his Autobot brethren, who’ve all been left homeless after the destruction of their home world. But a pair of Decepticons, evil Transformers, have followed Bumblebee to Earth. Their mission is to destroy Bumblebee and wipe out humanity, preparing Earth for Decepticon rule. Charlie and Bumblebee are assisted by a lovelorn neighbor (Jorge Lendeborg Jr) and a conflicted military officer (John Cena) in their climactic effort to thwart the Decepticons.
Bumblebee isn’t nearly as exciting or visually stunning as Michael Bay’s 2007 film. I was surprised just how different the tone is. Whereas Transformers is an adult action movie that kids can also enjoy, Bumblebee is a pure family film that adults may or may not appreciate. The undercooked screenplay by Christina Hodson (who also wrote the unreleased Batgirl movie) harkens back to E.T., wisely focusing on the warm relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee. Unfortunately, that relationship often wallows in extreme cheesiness and sentimentality. The surrounding plot often feels simplistic and improbable, and the film isn’t sophisticated enough or paced well enough to sustain a two-hour runtime.
Hailee Steinfeld is a fine actor who gives her best effort, but this clichéd role doesn’t give her much to work with. Jorge Lendeborg Jr. is as dull as dishwater in the role of Steinfeld’s neighbor and potential love interest. Steinfeld’s parents, played by Pamela Adlon and Stephen Schneider, are the most grating characters of all. Then there’s the questionable characterization of the title character himself. Hodson portrays Bumblebee as a mature warrior before meeting Charlie, but afterwards he’s suddenly a clumsy, infantile pet. He loses his ability to speak in an early battle scene, so his relationship with Charlie is largely one-sided. Instead of giving the relationship any meaningful depth, the film relies on the continual infantilizing of Bumblebee for manufactured charm.
Directed by Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings, Masters of the Universe). With Jason Drucker as the annoying younger brother character, John Ortiz as the obligatory science guy, Peter Cullen as the voice of Autobots leader Optimus Prime, Angela Bassett as the voice of a bad Decepticon, and Len Cariou as Charlie’s grumpy uncle — the only human character I kinda liked.