Bumblebee is the latest film in the Transformers franchise and comes directed by Travis Knight who some may know for his work on Kubo and the Two Strings (2016). Bumblebee stars Hailee Steinfeld, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Cena, Jason Drucker and Pamela Adlon.
This Transformers film, it isn’t really a continuation of the previous films we’ve seen in the series, but instead goes back into the past to 1987 when Bumblebee first arrived on Earth. In some ways, this film acts as a prequel to all others in the series. This is good for those who haven’t seen any of the Transformers films at all as you can enter into the franchise with this as your first film quite easily.
When first going in to see Bumblebee I was quite excited about it, but hadn’t had my expectations super high. I like the Transformers franchise, but have not really considered many of the recent films to be great lately. Bumblebee is a little bit different to the previous films as well because where the previous films I’ve always thought were aimed at audiences who were teenagers or older, this film is actually friendly enough that people under 10 could handle it and there were many kids that age and younger in the session I was in watching this one. But I thought this change in audience was actually quite good, I came out of the cinema enjoying Bumblebee much more than I thought I would and this movie made me excited about the franchise again.
The plot of this film is centred around Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) who has just turned 18 and is looking to get her first car. Not having enough money to buy one brand new like all her rich school friends, she find a VW Beetle in the dump and starts fixing it up, little does she know that, that VW is actually Bumblebee and her new best friend. But not all is good in the world and some evil Decepticons are hunting Bumblebee as the war on his home world is about the spread to Earth and Bumblebee is the only Transformer on the planet to defend it. The two characters will need to work together to stop this incoming threat to the planet.
I thought that the plot of this Transformers film was actually rather good. There was a lot of character development on the Charlie character and by the time the film ends, I felt that audiences really do get to know her quite well. Hailee Steinfeld did very well in this film with her character and her performance here makes Bumblebee her best film at the moment. I do hope that there is some future for this character in this franchise as I’d like to see her come back were there to be a sequel.

The special effects in this film are good and for a kids movie, it’s probably better than most other films out the moment that kids can go and see that are similar to this experience. Bumbleebee is very well animated and his design and his movements in this film are very well done and it looks realistic throughout the film. The villains were also well animated and done quite well. These things will all definitely impress the kids, especially those who might have been too young when the franchise started and are just coming in now to see Bumblebee as they’re now old enough now for it and I think they’ll really enjoy it.
Overall Bumblebee is surprisingly better than most who are familiar with the franchise might be expecting. I was not expecting a story with a strong central character like Charlie and I was not expecting a film that would have good character development on its main character, but I did get that from Bumblebee and it was great! Travis Knight did a great job directing this film and did well to balance the tone of this one in making it something friendly for kids to watch, but also something that adults can enjoy as well, plus also fitting into the Transformers franchise without it being too different. Hailee Steinfeld did a great job with her character and did impress me with her performance, Bumblebee might be her best film yet. I’m happy to recommend seeing Bumblebee at the cinema this weekend.