Despite never meeting any sort of critical acclaim, the Transformers movies keep bringing in cash, so Paramount is gonna keep pushing out more. The next to roll out is a prequel/spin-off centered around the fan favorite Bumblebee. As the newly released first trailer reveals, Bumblebee will be… well, it’ll be a Transformers movie, just set in 1987 and apparently sweeter than Michael Bay’s explosion-heavy series.
The plot is pretty standard at this point: Alien robot disguised as car meets and befriends teen, adventure ensues as they save the world and each other. This time around, Hailee Steinfeld, plays the human part of the pairing, Charlie Watson, who finds the VW bug that turns out to be Bumblebee in a junkyard. The Autobot is on the run from the US government (and John Cena) and at least one Decepticon (presumably Starscream), hurt and afraid. Charlie’s warmth and compassion gives Bee the strength to patch himself up and fight back.
While the sappiness comes off a little uneasily (attempting to use Bernie Mac’s corny “the car pick the driver” speech from the first Transformers movie as a salient voiceover is cringeworthy), at least the looks of the robots themselves seem to have improved. Instead of the sleek, convoluted mess of Bay’s film, director Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings) have gone for a bulkier (ie, more realistic) and less noisy design for the Transformers, which if nothing else should make the action scenes easier to watch.
Bumblebee is out this Christmas, and you can watch the trailer below.
