The Lowedown on “Bumblebee” (PG-13 – Theatrical – US)

Or, “My 17 year old self has a crush on Hailee Steinfeld”

Well, fellow space travellers…here I am to bring you The Lowedown on “Bumblebee”. I went to the theater with the intent to see Aquaman…but it’s a 45 minutes drive to the nearest cinema and I just didn’t make it in time. Like the saying goes, “when one door closes, settle for the next available movie.” So let’s break this movie down in true transformer fashion and find out if it’s a good film… Or if we were all decepticon’ed.

Genre: Sci-Fi Sub-Genre: Tech/Alien

Let’s look at the movie scores:

Cast=7

Acting=6

Plot=7

Ending=9

Story=7

Movie Score=7.2

It’s a good score, but not great. There were some issues I had, but it was a solid effort. For the cast, I could only award seven points… Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena are recognizable right off the bat and I noticed John Ortiz in there. Not much else to work with. The acting was ok, but a lot of it fell a bit flat… Six points there.

Plot:
Set in 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard of a small Californian beach town. A young woman about to turn 18, finds the alien robot as she also finds herself. It’s solid, but leaves some holes with the other movies… Seven points.

I really liked the ending… It closed the movie well and there was a lot of action. Nine points will go to that, but only seven for the story. Again, there are a few holes connecting to the franchise, but it does link a little better to the comic book.

Favorite quote: “They literally call themselves Decepticons. That doesn’t set off any red flags?”

Let’s look at the Genre scores:

CGI=10

Violent=8

Pace=8

I loved the CGI in this! Ten full points awarded for it having the CGI needs but was not too over-the-top… I call that the ‘Bay’ effect. It is PG-13 after all, so no full points for violence. It was still solid though, so I’ll give it eight. The pace as well, was solid… There were a couple of lag points, but that makes it worthy of another eight points.

The Sub-Genre Scores:

Tech=9

Alien=8

Genre Score: 8.6

The technology was great… I loved the 80’s tech as well as the alien tech. There was one small exception… So nine points. Now for the alien… It’s Bumblebee. I would have wanted more information on the others, but I guess that wasn’t needed… Eight points there.

Total Score: 7.9

So as the car drives off into the sunset… I actually enjoyed the movie. I liked Hailee’s role in the movie… After seeing her in the Pitch Perfect franchise, it was nice to see her in a “plain Jane” look. There was an obvious foreshadowing bump and I think my biggest disappointment was in the acting. But if what you’re looking for is a sci-fi movie, this is a solid watch.