Bumblebee

The sixth movie in the Transformers franchise, I sat down with Noshi yesterday to have a look at this prequel.

And after the, let's put it politely, garbage of the previous instalments, I didn`t have much hope.

But how wrong was I proven.  Not only is this movie far better in how the characters look and are recognisable like their cartoon counterparts (the opening part alone already!), it`s also just great fun filled with funny jokes and situations.

After fleeing Cybertron, Bumblebee is send to Earth to secure the planet as a rallying point for the Autobots, and he has to prevent the Decepticons from finding and claiming it for themselves (which does rise the question how Blitwing already ended up there).  He gets beaten up in the resulting fight (and it is explained how he loses his voice) and this raises the ire of mankind against the robots as well.

Charlie Watson, an 18 year old girl in 1987, finds a yellow Volkswagen Beetle in her uncle Hank1s scrapyard, and receives it as a present.  This soon turns out to be our beloved Autobot, but with a damaged memory core he can`t remember who he is or why he is here, so she dubs him Bumblebee.  As he slowly remembers, he sends out a signal to the Autobots, but this is intercepted on the moons of Saturn by Decepticons Shatter and Dropkick, as they are executing Cliffjumper (nooooooooo) to learn the whereabouts of the planned rallying point.  They travel to Earth and through deception befriend the Sector 7 agency in locating Bumblebee.

They capture and kill Bumblebee, but Charlie is on time to save him and bring him back, and as Sector 7 also sees the error of their ways, they join forces.  Together they prevent the Decepticons from sending a signal to bring an army to Earth and conquer it.  Bumblebee and Charlie say their goodbye's, and taking on the form of a 1977 Camaro (ugh) Bumblebee reunites with Optimus as the Autobot fugitives reunite...

A good movie for sure, that brings back some redemption to the franchise.  It's also great the robots now aren't just grey metallic masses with unfollowable transformations, but actually look like how we got to know them in our childhoods.

Definitly the best of the series!