Bumblebee

As the Transformers war between the good-guy Autobots and evil Decepticons for the planet Cybertron continues, this origin story, set in the late 1980s, reveals how Bumblebee came to Earth and befriended a troubled teenage girl. Still mourning the death of her mechanic father, feisty 18-year-old Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld), who loves repairing automobiles, yearns for a car of her own. Spying a faded yellow 1967 Volkswagen Beetle in a San Francisco Bay Area junkyard, Charlie is determined to restore it. While she’s tinkering, the car suddenly morphs into an enormous alien robot. Terrified at first, Charlie soon realizes that she has a new badass buddy, and together they enthusiastically indulge in merry mischief. But then nefarious Decepticons Shatter and Dropkick (Angela Bassett, Justin Theroux) arrive, convincing the gullible U.S. military that they are peaceful visitors who are searching for a dangerous intergalactic traitor. But not everyone is fooled: as suspicious Sector 7 Agent Jack Burns (John Cena) notes, “They’re called Decepticons!” In the backstory, Autobot leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) dispatches warrior B-127 (Dylan O’Brien) on a scouting mission so that other Autobots can relocate and protect Earth in the future. But a fiery crash-landing and a losing battle with Decepticon Blitzwing (David Sobolov) quickly sends severely damaged B-127 into hiding—until Charlie finds him and dubs him Bumblebee. Working from a solid coming-of-age script by Christina Hodson, animator-turned-director Travis Knight and his VFX team recapture the inventiveness of Michael Bay’s 2007 action franchise original, adding style and sentiment. Recommended. [Note: Blu-ray extras include a “California Cruisin’ Down Memory Lane” featurette (20 min.), deleted and extended scenes (19 min.), outtakes (10 min.), a “Sector 7 Adventures: The Battle at Half Dome” animated short (9 min.), the production segments “Bumblebee Goes Back to G1” (10 min.) “The Stars Align” (7 min.), “Back to the Beetle” (6 min.), “Bee Vision: The Transformers Robots of Cybertron” (4 min.), “The Story of Bumblebee” (4 min.), and “Agent Burns: Welcome to Sector 7,” as well as a comic book, and bonus DVD and digital copies of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a winning Transformers franchise entry.] (S. Granger)