June 7, 2023 – Advance Screening

This was definitely a fun movie. I will say I still hold Bumblebee at the top of my Transformers movie list, but this one was enjoyable.

I loved seeing the Maximals. The designs looked great both in beast form and in maximized form. The Autobots looked as good as they always do. And the Terracons looks menacing and sleek. I did want more time with the Maximals though. I think one of them maybe spoke once? But eh, it’s not a big detractor.

The human characters were likable. I do wish there was a little bit more time with a couple of them. But I got what I needed from them character-building-wise.

The story was relatively simple. Get this, prevent this. I do wish there was a bit more fleshing out of story. And maybe a bit more threat level from the Terracons. Though if these are still canon with the first movies, then I guess they can’t get too big since most human interactions with the Transformers was around the 2000’s.

The fight scenes were of course very well done. This certainly would have looked good in 3D. And the human within the fight scenes were good too. They always do the fighting between the combatants brilliantly.

All the locations were great. The filming locations in Peru was beautiful. It was very nice to see the culture factoring into things at times.

Surprisingly, I feel like it went by too fast! I wanted more time with some of the characters. But maybe that’s just because I would have enjoyed a movie with only the Maximals in it or something with fewer characters to focus on certain ones.

I always feel like it’s difficult to do ensemble movies when you have human and non-human characters. For example, Godzilla. The balance between monster fights and human plot is delicate. Bumblebee maybe was as good as it was because it was mainly two characters, and the plot was focused on them. Maybe Transformer movies should focus on one or two bots with some kind of plot. That way we don’t have to be introduced to characters each movie that we barely know about. I’m not sure really. But I certainly don’t say that meaning that this wasn’t an enjoyable film, it was.

Basically, this was a fun movie with some heart and lots of action. I do hope that this leads to something more in the future. It certainly seems to suggest something more.

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Mid-credit scene: Yes. This is the aforementioned suggesting of something more. Also quite an unexpected something. Strap in, y’all! *There is one other scene that I was reminded of, but I can’t remember if it was another mid-credit scene or an end-credit one. It’s just a fun one.

End-credit scene: Nope*. Though, if anyone stays during a normal showing, as this was an advanced screening, and there was something added, let me know!