Audience scores are there for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts — and it seems the last Transformers the film is more than it seems. Professional critics have given beasts a 55% on the Rotten Tomatoes tomometer, but the verified viewership score currently sits at 88%: the highest moviegoer score in the live-action franchise’s 16-year history. Fans seemed to appreciate The Rising of the Beasts over 2018 Bumblebee (74% audience score) – still the highest-reviewed film with 91% reviews – and the original film that spawned the hit franchise, 2007 Transformers (85%).
The Rising of the Beasts also fared much better with audiences than 2009’s Transformers: Revenge (57%), 2011 Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon (55%), 2014 Transformers: Age of Extinction (50%), and 2017 Transformers: The Last Knight (43%). (See all Transformers movies ranked from best to worst and find out where to stream the Transformers movies online.)
Bumblebee perhaps the most acclaimed Transformers film, but bringing Beast Wars on the big screen, the producers wanted to balance the action and spectacle the franchise is known for with real human emotion.
“People really loved the heartfelt story of Bumblebeebut some of the core fans wanted a more intense experience, so when we decided to make this movie, our goal was to combine heart and spectacle, and to make sure those two sides served each other well”
said producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura in the production documents. “This film has the enormous magnitude that Transformers films are known for and the intimacy of Bumblebee at the relationship level. It’s just a really great experience in every possible way.”
Inspired by the Beast Wars: Transformers animated series, the new film features “a lot of new heroes and villains that will blow your mind for diehard fans,” di Bonaventura added. “It’s jam-packed with robots that we’ve never seen in a movie before. That’s one of the great things about Transformers: The story is based on what happened on Cybertron, which gives us a lot of leeway to explore the universe as a whole. So in this movie, we’re introducing the Maximals for the very first time.”
There are the Autobots, disguised robots that transform into vehicles: Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), Bumblebee, Arcee (Liza Koshy), Wheeljack (Cristo Fernánde) and Mirage (Pete Davidson). And there are the Maximals, the living metallic organic bot-bots: the mighty ape-like Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), the hovering Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), the majestic Cheetor (Tongayi
Chirisa), and the Armored Rhinox (David Sobolov). Together, the two factions must unite against Scourge (Peter Dinklage) and work together to stop the evil Unicron (Colman Domingo) from annihilating Earth.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is now showing in theaters only.