Kubo and the Two Strings helmer Travis Knight directs Hailee Stenfield in this Transformers spin-off centering around Bumblebee, set in 1987. On the run, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie (Steinfeld), on the cusp of turning 18, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary, yellow VW bug.
On the purported departure from typical Transformers movie stylisation, producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura remarks, "In fact it reminds me a little bit of Iron Giant years ago when I did that movie at Warner Bros. It just reminds me a little bit of that where it was very contained and yet it didn’t feel small."
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Kubo and the Two Strings helmer Travis Knight directs Hailee Stenfield in this Transformers spin-off centering around Bumblebee, set in 1987. Critic Aaron Yap is relieved to have a film from this franchise that doesn't nosedive into absolute Bay-hem.
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The latest Transformers movie, Bumblebee, isn't going to win any prizes for originality – but it's pretty good at doing what it should do.
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"Bumblebee" is basically the movie that fans of the 1980s animated series wanted all along.
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Knight and Hodson have salvaged something agreeable from an otherwise badly dented series.
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In a better, truer cinematic universe, Travis Knight would have been in charge of the Transformers franchise all along.
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Move over Herbie: Fully Loaded, there's a new champion in the girl-and-her-VW movie genre.
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"Bumblebee," for its part, has just enough wit, playfulness and charm to develop a voice of its own, which is no small thing in the context of a flashy, lunkheaded studio franchise.
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It's an effective reimagining that also bears a knowing resemblance to classic youth-oriented films from Bumblebee executive producer Steven Spielberg.
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An impassioned ode to both the toys and their era, this, at last, is the Transformers movie we've been waiting for.
Full reviewBumblebee is available to stream in New Zealand now on Netflix and Google Play and Prime Video and Apple TV.
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