There really isn't a lot to spoil for Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts because we've seen most of it in the exhausting number of previews. Depending on how much you have followed the marketing, the only new things you may see are the handful of plot elements in the film play out. This is good news and bad news, as the movie is loaded with robot action, but it's a rather small party focused on the same characters we've already met in the previews and Hasbro's toys at retail.

Basically, what we get is a classic "War of the Worlds" story without apologies. It is engaging, and the fight scenes are good, but it does feel uneven in some places. Anyone who's watched a lot of Transformers shows knows the human elements always feel awkward in the scope, and scale of things. For me, Rise Of The Beasts lacks the most in this regard. The acting sometimes felt unconvincing, especially for the humans, who feel out of place at times. I won't go into details on who and why, as I am sure everyone will feel differently about how each character was portrayed, or not, as some only have a few lines of dialog. Sadly, Rise suffers from the same paradox the Netflix War For Cybertron show did with missing the mark on characterizations that were supposed to be what attracts fans to watch in the first place.

No question, Rise Of The Beasts spends the most time with the Transformers robots, that are the best looking, and most enjoyable of all the movies made so far. The Transformers are on the screen more than they are not, and it never got old looking them, even with some much appreciated slow motion shots for extra-robot goodness. Between battles, the audience is fed mostly raw entertainment that is fast-paced, but swings from awesome to overplayed. There are quite a few jaw dropping scenes with Unicron and Scourge, compared to other scenes that should have been deeply emotional, but passed by without a single tear from the cast. While some battle scenes saw incredible brutality and skill, others scenes shifted powers between characters that didn't make sense. Apart from the setup for the Maximals, there is little explanation about whom, how, and why these various characters and their factions are together in the film. This kind of discontinuity was felt in the music and sound design as well. The GIANT robots hardly made any sounds, explosions and dramatic music were too quiet when they needed to be loud, and the pop music was overbearing in some scenes when it just needed to set the mood. When as much as 50% of a movie relies on sound, Rise failed to provide what should have been an immersive sound experience for a movie on this scale.

All said, Rise of the Beasts is more like an extended cartoon episode, than epic story telling that reveals the incredible lore of the Transformers. It assumes we already know these characters, and dives right into the action without having to explain things. After six movies, we have to accept these films are more like one-off episodes than cinematic works of art. Thus, we can only take Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts for what it is, a modernized light version of Transformers that depicts these alien beings in a manner that newcomers can relate to. In this regard, the movie does that well and is very much worth seeing just for the all the heavy metal wars. Overall, I give the Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts movie 3 out of 5 stars for the wonderful fighting robot action, but have to take issues with the limp writing, poor acting, and weak soundtrack.