Flight Of The 'Bumblebee': Transformers Flick Soars Over (Low) Franchise Expectations
Director Travis Knight takes over from Michael Bay, and sets about getting viewers to care about characters instead of assaulting our senses. The result is surprisingly watchable.
Mankind has split the atom, sent a man to the moon, and now, in arguably its most unlikely achievement, it has produced a watchable Transformers movie.
There's really no scientific expression for how low Michael Bay's five previous movies have set the bar, but it's not enough to praise , the diverting new spin-off/prequel, for basic visual coherence or evidence of identifiable human emotion. It does better than that, imbuing the commercial cynicism of a Hasbro, , and a soundtrack so chock-a-block with '80s favorites that it gets from The Smiths to Steve Winwood in a hummingbird's sneeze.
