Bumblebee Is Yet Another 80s Nostalgia Trip

Bumblebee, the new Transformers movie, is pretty cute—which feels strange to say about a Transformers movie. But thats the only word for it, really. The movie, which was written by Christina Hodson and directed by Travis Knight, is a warm and fuzzy origin story about a girl and her robot, full of handsome emotional beats, a John Cena villain worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon, and a soaring sense of minds changed and good triumphing over evil. There are big splashy battles, sure, and a little bit of political intrigue in the plotting. But this movie was unabashedly designed to be a kick in the feelings. Again: strange for a Transformers movie.

Not in a bad way, necessarily. Transformers movie die-hards, who definitely exist, have to admit that the five(!) Transformers films to date, all helmed by Michael Bay, have had a pretty consistent run. Theyre all very much Michael Bay movies: heated, overstuffed, and greasy as old junkyard parts. Its not a bad thing to change things up, particularly for a prequel like Bumblebee. Whats intriguing is that the film should change things up in this particular way, with A-Ha needle drops and a plot ripped right from the E.T. playbook.

Say what you want about Michael Bay, but at least his movies have their own identity. They occupy their own territory—albeit one I dont necessarily want to visit often. But Bumblebee could have been made by anyone, as long as they were working from the right style guide.

Which makes it a familiar ride, but not a bad one. The star of Bumblebee is the wonderful Hailee Steinfeld, who plays Charlie—an 18-year-old Californian trying to survive an onslaught of bad 80s hair, teenage social drama, and an admiring boy across the street (played by a charming Jorge Lendeborg Jr.). Shes savvy and hardworking, but per the rules of being a 21st-century action heroine, shes also got sadness in her past. Her dads dead. Her mom, Sally (Pamela Adlon), is very much alive—but has, distressingly, married Ron (Stephen Schneider), a guy whose idea of a good birthday present for the tomboyish Charlie is a book encouraging her to smile more.

Charlie wants what every 18-year-old wants for her birthday: a car. What she winds up with is, of course, the Autobot she nicknames Bumblebee, who at first glance is a completely broken-down Volkswagen Beetle. After a little fixing up, the hulking, shy, yellow space robot emerges, as sheepish and easily chastised as a puppy—and so do the intergalactic troubles that brought him here.

The best scenes in Bumblebee are probably meant to be the heartwarming, humorously ironic bonding scenes between this young woman and her alien robot friend. But I perked up a bit more at all the other stuff: the Tweedledee and Tweedledum pair of Decepticon villains whove arrived from Cybertron to hunt Bumblebee down, for example, or the militaristic Agent Burns (John Cena), whose one-track-minded pursuit of the lovable Autobot leads him hilariously astray.

Theres just a nudge more imagination in that stuff than in the central arc, which surprised me. Knight, C.E.O. of the increasingly inventive studio Laika, was an animator on the Laika films Coraline and ParaNorman, as well as the director of Kubo and the Two Strings. His studios been a welcome change of pace in American animation, a worthy counterpoint to the rounded-edge goody-goody vibes of most Pixar films. In Coraline, the titular heroine faces the threat of a needle in her eyes, a villain who wants to replace her pupils with sewn-on coat buttons.

In Bumblebee, though, the greatest danger is a nostalgia overdose: the same music cues, emotional beats and the like that have defined everything from Netflixs Stranger Things to last years It remake. Bumblebee is also more of a kids movie in look and feel than its Transformers siblings, which makes you wonder whether there are really 10-year-olds out there who perk up at the opening strains of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” (I . . . hope not?)

And though the film is mostly pleasant, little of the wily, awkward eccentricity of Knights other projects seems to color his approach to Bumblebee—which is almost too bad. Because while I cant even begin to imagine with Optimus Prime by way of Coraline would look like, and am sure that would not be a good idea, its at least an idea.

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