When an ancient force dating back to the dawn of Transformers history sends his evil minions, the Terrorcons, to Earth, Optimus Prime and the Earthbound Autobots must band with the Maximals, and their newfound human allies, if they hope to save their homes. I’m going to preface this by saying there may be some bias in this review. I wanted to go at it as both a movie fan, but also as a Transformer fan. I’m a die-hard fan of the franchise, and while the other mediums of storytelling that they’ve been exposed to has had some masterful works, the movies haven’t been as solid. I love the animated The Transformers: The Movie from 1986, and Bumblebee was a fun and endearing romp, but the other ones? Well, let’s just say I’ve had some horribly painful experiences that would give watching the Bay films a run for their money. I was worried about the quality of Rise of the Beasts going into it, but still optimistic. Thank the lord that the film was actually not half bad! It does have issues, and a lot of them do stem from a trimmed down runtime, but it has an actual story. Like I said, the pacing and runtime needs work, and that would basically solve every issue. Some of the story beats needed more time to cook, and there’s a few too many things that a fan could pick up on just because they know it from other stories, but it isn’t explained well at all. But the thing I wanted most in this movie was for it to be faithful to the franchise, and treat the ‘Bots like actual characters. And they do! Optimus Prime himself has a lot of depth, and while he did do a few things that made me a little confused, I can sense that they’re going for a Prime that we aren’t very used to at this point, and his trajectory going forward with a sequel leaves a lot of room to grow. The other Transformers themselves don’t have stories that are as big, but they still feel real. They have actual traits and personalities, and you can tell that the script really had fun with all the interactions they can play with. And the main villain, Scourge, feels like a proper villain. There’s a presence to him, and he has a clear cut goal, and while he is just a herald to a bigger villain, it doesn’t feel like he’s just some lackey; he feels like a villain. As a whole, I’m happy to report that I very much enjoyed this film. It isn’t perfect by a long shot, but has a well rounded story, cohesive action, and stays true to the characters. A solid recommend in my book!