It's Beastly!

I feel like somehow I have offended Primus at some point in my life.

Paramount continues to release Transformers films when there is no way I can get myself in a theater see them.

Then I watch them at home on disc and think, 

"MAN! I really wish I could have seen this on the big screen!"

Transformer: Rise of the Beasts came out back in June...

And I finally saw it recently and cheered almost all the way through.

We get a new crop of humans this time, which the film had to introduce knowing full well we don't care about them. This was handled expertly, by starting with a robot filled cold open. Then, the new humans were brought in. When that introduction had just about made me think, "I do not give a hoot about these people," the story turned to the core and best part of the franchise:

Giant robots beating the crap out of each other.

Yet, there was enough back story that I did care about the people possibly being stepped on when the giant robots were beating the crap out of each other.

This one takes place between Bumblebee and the main films of the franchise. That allows a continued character arc for 'Bee and Optimus Prime to get them to where we've seen them in the bulk of the movies. 

Mirage and Arcee joined the team in major roles, continuing the trend of cool looking high speed vehicular robots. Mirage is the point of view character (not counting the boring humans) and was hilarious but with a lot of heart. The old Transformer fan in me appreciated the quick cameo of his cartoon Indy Car form. After having the painting of Arcee I made for Anabelle on her wall since before she was born, she was very happy to see the female Autobot finally play a bigger part, and actually do some things. Other Autobots show us these live action film makers have finally figured out how to make them funny without being annoying. Sratosphere and Wheeljack fit the "useful but goofy" roles well.

The title of the film came from the Autobot allies, the Maximals. I will always be a G1 Transformers fan first, but that Beast Wars show definitely had better writing and animation. Plus it respected what came before by existing in the same continuity. Primal dropped a couple of hints that continuity was followed by implying the Maximals came from the Autobot's future, but had time travelled back to the distant past. 

Now we have Transformers from two different shows, updated, but still looking like they did on TV!

The bad guys still had a bunch of generic looking robot soldiers, Scorponoks and the Sweeps, both using names from unrelated G1 Decepticons. Speaking of using different names, there were no Decepticons in this film. The bad guy group used another repurposed moniker,  Predacons. They worked directly for Unicron, who looked AMAZING in this!  Scourge is traditionally the leader of the Sweeps, so bonus points for that name choice. These were pants wettingly powerful foes, using Unicron's "Dark Energon" to be a larger threat to our heroes. More bonus points for the deep cut name "Nightbird" who wasn't a Transformer in the classic cartoon but a Japanese built Robot Ninja. There was another Predacon who's name I forgot. He was cool and dangerous too. Kind of an evil Mater.

The voice cast was fantastic. Peter Cullen is still the perfect Optimus Prime, and adding Michelle Yeoh and Ron Perelman to anything is always a great idea.

The action and visuals wee top notch as always. The realism around the robots kept to the normally insane levels of this Franchise. They filmed in and around Cuzco and Machu Picchu, many times in places that have not allowed anything close to this sized film crew before, and always fully respecting the locations.

Back when we went to Peru when one of these came out, I was surprised how big the franchise was there. That's nothing compared to this film. The highest grossing movie in Peruvian history!

Someday I will see one of these on the big screen.

Spoilers 

Since this takes place before the other Bay films, there wasn't much suspense in the fact that Bumblebee was going to come back after being blasted. 

How awesome it was turned out real well though.

Those of us who know the Beast Wars cartoon, know there's hope for Airazor too, as soon as Tigatron shows up.

Dear Paramount,

Please don't screw up the hinted at Cross Over in the end scene.