DATE REVIEWED: 5/30/24
TITLE: Bumblebee
BOX OFFICE RATED: PG-13 (This is not suitable for GOD’s children.)
PRODUCTION YEAR: 2018 Paramount Pictures / Allspark Pictures / Hasbro / Tencent Pictures/di Bonaventura Pictures / Bay Films
RATING [1 LEAST FAVORITE TO 5 HIGHLY RECOMMENDED]: 1
REASON: This movie began with a battle on the planet Cybertron, where the evil Decepticons attacked the good Autobots(all robots called Transformers which could turn themselves into different transport objects). As Cybertron fell to the Decepticons, Optimus Prime, the head Autobot, assigned Bumblebee to start an Autobot base on Earth. Optimus would go into hiding on Earth with the other Autobots and gather reinforcements before another battle with the Decepticons. In Brighton Falls, California, in 1987, former US Army colonel Jack Burns and his agents from the Sector 7 organization practiced paintball in the woods. Bumblebee’s traveling pod crash-landed and injured the agents, and Burns thought it was a military drill but it was confirmed not to be. Other soldiers chased after and shot at Bumblebee, and he turned back and forth between a robot and a Jeep (bot copied what he saw) to escape. He was very damaged so Bumblebee tried to explain that he came in peace, but then a Decepticon plane appeared and fired missiles. The other transformers severely injured the agents, but Burns survived. The Decepticon battled with Bumblebee and took away his ability to speak when he refused to reveal where Optimus and the other Autobots were hiding. The Decepticon tried to kill Bumblebee, but he was able to blow up the Decepticon. Bumblebee’s systems then failed and he shut down, but not before he disguised himself as a yellow VW Beetle. Meanwhile, teen female 17-year-old Charlie Watson asked her mom Sally for $500 so Charlie could finish the Corvette she was fixing up in the garage that she and her dad started working on together, before he died. Nurse Sally didn’t have the money because she said nurses were underpaid, but her live-in fiancé Ron promised to help Charlie out if he got hired for a job. Charlie worked at the hot dog on a stick place on the boardwalk, while her next-door neighbor, Guillermo “Memo” Gutierrez, worked at the churro place. Memo repeatedly tried to talk to Charlie but she ignored him and wasn’t interested in dating him. Charlie accidentally spilled lemonade on Tripp Summers, so his mean girlfriend, Tina Lark, and her nasty girl gang pals were cruel to Charlie. Charlie, in her spare time, picked up parts from Uncle Hank’s junkyard that he gave her for free, and it was there that she found a yellow VW Beetle (Bumblebee). When she started the car, it transmitted Bumblebee’s signal to two Deceptions, a male and a female, so they knew where to find Bumblebee. The evil ones had already captured Cliffjumper, an Autobot who was part of the resistance, and he refused to say where Optimus was so the Deceptions sliced Cliffjumper in half to kill him. Charlie and her dad had worked on the Corvette until he died, so now Charlie was having trouble finishing it without his expertise. Charlie felt neglected when her family spent time together without her and they seemed to be content watching Alf and hanging out having family time, whereas Charlie was not. It was Charlie’s 18thbirthday the next day, so Sally gave her daughter a girly flower helmet for her electric bike and Ron gave her a therapy book about smiling, when she had hoped for a car or money. Charlie couldn’t believe it and was upset. Charlie then went to Hank and offered to do the upkeep of the junkyard for a year and clean his disgusting bathrooms in exchange for the Beetle, but Hank decided to give Charlie the yellow bug car as a birthday present. Charlie worked on the car, and when it started she thanked God and loved Him. She drove the barely running vehicle home that Hank and his employee thought was a death trap and put it in the garage. Not long after, the Beetle transformed into its Bumblebee self. Charlie was freaked out and tried to hide it from her mom when Sally came to check on her daughter because of the strange noises, but Bumblebee had already turned back into a Beetle before Sally could see.Charlie then discovered that Bumblebee was friendly and harmless. At a trailer park in Texas, Roy’s wife, Amber, wanted a divorce because her husband tried to sleep with Amber’s sister and then he bought a new expensive car instead of using the money as a down payment on a house. As they argued outside, two fireballs then appeared from space, and the first exploded a big rig while the second exploded Roy’s new car. The male and female Decepticons appeared in hotrod car form. The male zapped and killed Roy after Roy said, “Hey.” Roy was instantly popped and turned into liquid. . The Decepticons then left Texas and headed to California. Another day, Charlie learned that Sally took her VW car because the family dog, Conan, had an emergency. Charlie freaked out and rode after them on her bike and pulled her mom over as the two foolishly talked while driving beside each other (Charlie in the middle of the road). Charlie claimed that Sally was hysterical and couldn’t drive so she could get behind the wheel but mom knew her daughter was acting stressed out about something because nurses handle medical situations all the time and knew Charlie was not being honest about suddenly caring about Conan when the other day Charlie said the dog wasn’t her responsibility. Charlie took Bumblebee to the beach to practice transforming into a car whenever someone was around so he wouldn’t be discovered as a robot and taken away. Burns received word that the Decepticons were on the move, so the Sector 7 agents made a roadblock to confront the approaching non-biological Decepticons. The Decepticons lied that they were galaxy peacekeepers and wanted access to satellites to track down Bumblebee, a wanted criminal hiding out on Earth. Meanwhile, Charlie tried to fix something wrong with Bumblebee after an incomplete message about the war played from Optimus after he got captured in Cybertron. Back in the garage, Charlie fixed up Bumblebee’s broken radio. As she did that, he played a videotape of Charlie’s high school dive meet, and she was upset because her dad was in the video. Bumblebee didn’t like any of Charlie’s music tapes and wanted to hear one of her dad’s old records. They instead played Charlie’s dad’s favorite song, Unchained Melody (Sam Cooke), a love song that he and Charlie used to play as father and daughter both worked together on the Corvette. Charlie hugged Bumblebee. Back at the government building, Burns and Dr. Powell met with General Whalen. Agent Burns was opposed to letting the Decepticons use the satellites so they could take over Washington, New York and Chicago and GOD only knows where else. However, Dr. Powell wanted to give the Decepticons access so they wouldn’t take their technology to the Russians. Whalen agreed to help the Decepticons find Bumblebee by giving the evil ones complete access of the government’s systems, and Dr. Powell was granted permission to experiment on the robots once they were finished. The Decepticons linked together phones, satellites and computers to achieve global communication to hunt down their targets. Memo barged through Charlie’s garage door to talk to her, and he was shocked to see Bumblebee. Charlie threatened to run Memo over with her car if he told anyone about Bumblebee, so he agreed to be silent. Charlie and Memo went out driving on the high ledge roadway, and she used his shirt to blindfold herself and prove to Memo that Bumblebee was in control. Charlie got Memo to stand up beside her in the car and let Herbie drive, and then Memo’s shirt blew away. Bumblebee then figured out how to communicate with Charlie by using song lyrics on different radio stations. Charlie and Memo went to a teen hangout, where Tripp dared someone to jump off the cliff into the water below with him. Bumblebee pushed Charlie forward because he knew she could dive, and Tripp recognized her as a champion diver from his little sister’s swim class. However, Charlie backed out after Tripp jumped off the high rocky cliff first into the water below so Tina bashed her for it and brought up the death of her dad to upset her further. Charlie and Memo got revenge on witchy Tina by giving Bumblebee Charmin so he could toilet paper Tina’s mansion. But, instead of just egging Tina’s car, Bumblebee jumped on it and smashed it and flattened the BMW car. Charlie and Memo sped off in Bumblebee as Tina’s car alarm went off and Tina came outside and then went crying to her mom when she saw her damaged vehicle in the driveway. On the roadway, Bumblebee and the teens sped away from the crime, so Sheriff Lock chased after them. Bumblebee drove even faster and blasted “I Can’t Drive 55.” In the Pico Tunnel, Bumblebee transformed slightly with the kids still in the car and jumped onto the top of the Sheriff’s car to wreck it and then made a quick getaway. The next morning, Charlie told Bumblebee to stay home so the police wouldn’t get him. At work, Charlie’s boss told her to steal sticks from another food stand since they ran out. While left alone and bored, Bumblebee saw the family dog go through the garage doggie door so he decided to go into Charlie’s house but he was too big and wrecked the place. Bumblebee was fascinated with the electronics so he stuck his finger in an outlet and blew out the power lines. Sector 7 got word of the outage in Brighton Falls. Memo was home so he called Charlie at work to tell her about the damage caused by the trans bot. They weren’t able to clean the mess up before Sally and Charlie’s younger brother Otis arrived back home. Charlie and Sally argued about the damaged house, and then Charlie left with Memo for mom to clean up the mess. The teens didn’t get far before armed Sector 7 agents surrounded them. Bumblebee transformed and grabbed Charlie and ran with her. He tried to protect her from the Decepticons who attacked Bumblebee and demanded to know where Optimus was. Sector 7 tased Bumblebee and Charlie got zapped too, and she woke up on her bed back at her house. Burns told Sally and Ron that Bumblebee was government property and Charlie stole “it,” not “he.” Charlie argued that she didn’t steal Bumblebee and he was a he and not it, but Sally and Ron didn’t believe her so she snuck out of the house to get Memo. Otis caught his big sister outside and screamed for their mom, but Charlie silenced Otis, who wore a Bruce Lee shirt because he was a yellow belt in martial arts. They all went to Memo’s house and saw on the news that Sector 7 was taking Bumblebee to the McKinnon Air Base, so Otis agreed to lie to the parents and cover for Charlie while she and her boy friend Memo went to help Bumblebee, who the Decepticons were trying to torture answers out of. Otis did his part in Charlie’s scheme and lied to his parents that Charlie was sick, so nurse Sally asked Otis if he were on drugs and went to Charlie’s room and it was there that mom discovered that Charlie had crawled out of her bedroom window and left. Charlie and Memo went to the air base, and the Decepticons had zapped Bumblebee until he shut down. Charlie shot Bumblebee with electric guns to try and restart him and he finally woke up. Burns and the other Sector 7 agents blew up the base and tried to capture Bumblebee, but he fought back and attacked Burns for hurting Charlie. Bumblebee blew everything up, and Memo stayed behind to hold off the agents while Bumblebee and Charlie tried to kill the Decepticons. Charlie kissed Memo on the cheek and left, and the agents chased after Charlie and Bumblebee because instead of stopping for the teen boy in the roadway they just drove around him. The news reported the high-speed chase, and Otis explained everything to Sally and Ron and the trio took their station wagon to find Charlie. Ron did fancy driving moves to distract and slow down Burns and the agents, and one agent car crashed. The reckless driving caused the youngest to throw up in the backseat. The Decepticons used the satellites to try and transmit a message to the other Decepticons in the Universe to tell them to send the army to Earth. Bumblebee put Charlie in the dumpster to keep her safe and communicated with her using The Smiths’ music that she liked and Bumblebee didn’t care for. Bumblebee battled with the male Decepticon while the female Decepticon tried to complete the transmission at the top of a tower. Charlie climbed up to the tower to stop the transmission and remove the transmitter device while Burns shot at the female Decepticon from a helicopter. Bumblebee wrapped his Decepticon in chains and used the chains to send his enemy up in flames and break him into pieces after the Decepticon turned into a helicopter. The female Decepticon went after Charlie as a plane, but Bumblebee shot her evil bot down. The two Transformers fought, while Charlie shut down the transmitter. The Decepticon threatened to kill Bumblebee and Charlie, but then Bumblebee blasted open the dam and a barge and large amount of water crashed into them both. Charlie finally dove again but this time off the tower into the water, and she and Bumblebee resurfaced. Burns saluted Bumblebee as a soldier and decided to let him and Charlie leave before Burns’ Sector 7 agent reinforcements arrived to hunt them down again. Memo was told the world had already been saved when he showed up so he asked Burns to call his mom. Charlie and Bumblebee said their goodbyes and went their separate ways because they both had their own lives to live, and Bumblebee turned into a yellow Camaro (copied the model that he saw drive on the nearby bridge) and then the Camaro bot sped off. Charlie wasn’t happy that Bumblebee wasn’t a Camaro the whole time she was with him. Charlie returned to her house and was happy to see her family waiting for her there with the news, police and bystanders all around. Memo appeared with his left arm in a sling, and he tried to hold Charlie’s hand but she told them she wasn’t ready for his romance. The movie ended with Bumblebee meeting up with Optimus in the woods at his hideout. Charlie miraculously drove off in a new ragtop Corvette that she no doubt got help from the bots in disguise to pay for it. This movie had a budget of $102-135 million budget and grossed $468 million at the box office. The movie cover art listed, Scott Mantz, Collider, “Fun, action-packed and exciting.”