I was slightly dreading the prospect of yet another Transformers movie. And I’m not the only one.
It’s almost a decade since a Transformers film topped $1bn at the box office.
Bumblebee, the last one, grossed a mere(!) $485million (£390million).
So to say I didn’t entirely hate this seventh instalment of the noisy, based-on-a-toy franchise is seriously high praise.
It’s set in a hip-hop-heavy 1994. A mercifully easy-to-follow plot centres around a ‘timewarp key’, which was hidden on Earth, like, ages ago.
Basically, Unicron (Colman Domingo), the biggest, baddest baddie in the universe wants to get hold of it, so he can, literally, eat our galaxy for lunch. The goodies are trying to stop him.
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Said good guys are, as ever, the Autobots, led by the heroic Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and also including an annoying Porsche called Mirage (voiced by the ubiquitous Pete Davidson), plus a newly introduced breed of Transformers called Maximals (who look like animals) including Michelle Yeoh’s robot eagle.
Traditionally the bad robots are the Decepticons, but here they are the Terrorcons.
You with me still?
The global majority human cast is led by Anthony Ramos (In The Heights), who delivers possibly the best performance in a Transformers movie ever as an ex-army soldier desperate to protect his adorable little brother (Dean Scott Vazquez), who gives the movie heart as an 11-year-old moppet with sickle cell anaemia.
There’s also Dominique Fishback, totally outclassing her infantile dialogue as a brainy Hermione Granger type/ potential love interest.
The action wisely sticks close to the humans and their robot buddies, meaning we feel more emotionally connected than usual. Though obviously the last half an hour is a massive, humongously tedious CGI battle.
Ramos’s character voices what we’re all thinking: ‘So, you’re robots that transform into cars, even though you’re from way out in space?’ Like, how does that make any sense?
Don’t you worry. Just slump back in your seat, stuff your face with popcorn and enjoy the sight of CGI robots punching each other.
In cinemas today
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