TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS

In TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS, a young Hispanic ex-soldier and a young black female archeologist from Brooklyn team up with the Autobots and a race of robots in animal form to stop a team of evil robots from opening a portal to Earth for their master, a huge, evil godlike robot who eats whole planets for energy. TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS sends moviegoers on a roller coaster of emotions and has some crowd-cheering moments in the big battle at the end, along with a pro-life message, but there’s some foul language and the villain is called a god.

The movie opens with Unicron, the evil planet-sized robot, sending his smaller robot minions, the Terrorcons, down to the home planet of a race of robots in animal form called the Maximals. Unicron wants them to steal the Transwarp Key that allows the Maximals to travel across time and space to preserve life. With the Transwarp Key, Unicron will be able to travel across time and space destroying all life by eating whole planets.

The Maximal leader sacrifices himself so that some of the Maximals, led by a gorilla robot named Optimus Primal, can use the Transwarp Key to escape to prehistoric Earth to hide there. Unicron orders the leader of his henchmen, Scourge, to search the universe for any use of the Transwarp Key.

Cut to thousands of years later, in 1994. Noah Diaz, a former military electronics expert living in Brooklyn, struggles to find a job to support his mother and little brother, Kris, who suffers from sickle-cell anemia. Sadly, they owe a few thousand dollars to the hospital for treating Kris. As a result, Noah and his mother can’t get any more treatments for Kris, who’s getting worse.

Noah loses out on a security guard job and healthcare because his commanding officer in the military reported that Noah isn’t a team player. So, he agrees to help a local street thug steal a fancy silver-blue Porsche sitting in a garage.

Noah sneaks into the garage. However, while he’s sitting in the Porsche, he decides not to steal the car. A security guard suddenly arrives and points a gun at him.

Meanwhile, Elena Wallace, a black archeologist living in Brooklyn and working alone at a museum for the night, uncovers the Transwarp Key hidden in a 5,000-year-old carved bird artifact. The key sends out a large signal beam into the sky, but only the sentient robots can see the beam.

Back in the garage, Noah ponders how to de-escalate the situation with the security guard. Noah hears the voice of Optimus Prime coming through the Porsche’s radio. Optimus Prime calls for all the Autobots to meet immediately. The Porsche comes alive and turns out to be Mirage, a spy Autobot who was ordered to hide until he hears from Optimus. Mirage starts his engine, and the Porsche goes speeding away from the security guard and out onto the streets, with Noah still sitting in the driver’s seat! A high-speed chase with police cars ensues, but Mirage eventually ditches them, and they meet up with the other Autobots at a warehouse.

At the warehouse, Optimus Prime is wary of Noah. He doesn’t trust any humans, but Mirage assures him he can trust Noah. Optimus tells the Autobots that the signal from the museum means that there’s a Transwarp Key they can use to finally return to their home planet. Mirage proposes that they send Noah into the museum building to find the Key and bring it out to them.

At the museum, however, Scourge and his Terrorcons have also seen the signal. Scourge sends some spider robots into the museum to take the key away from Noah, who’s taken it away from Elena. A fight ensues between the Autobots and the Terrorcons outside the museum while Noah and Elena try to escape from the spider robots. Noah and Elena escape, but Scourge is too strong and steals the Transwarp Key. The Autobots experience a great loss, and Scourge almost kills Optimus Prime too. However, Optimus is saved by a Maximal robot named Airazor, who’s shaped like a large bird and arrives on the scene in the nick of time.

Scourge takes the stolen key to Unicron, but Unicron angrily berates Scourge when he discovers that the Key from the museum is only half the real Key. Back on Earth, Airazor tells the Autobots, Elena and Noah that the Maximals split the Transwarp Key into two pieces. She saw the signal but has no idea where the second half of the Key is located or where the rest of the Maximals are.

However, Elena has an idea. After studying the symbols on the bird sculpture that housed half of the Key, she says the second half is located in Peru near Machu Pichu. So, they all travel to Peru to search for the second half of the Transwarp Key. Scourge and the Terrorcons are hot on their trail, however.

Will the Autobots and their new human friends be able to keep the second half of the Transwarp Key away from the Terrorcons? Or will Scourge and the Terrorcons defeat them again?

TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS sends moviegoers on a roller coaster of emotions. The bad robots kill a fan favorite Autobot. They also almost kill Optimus Prime while defeating the Autobots and stealing the first half of the Transwarp Key. However, the ending has some great, crowd-pleasing surprises that turn the tide for the good guys and will elicit cheers from the audience.

RISE OF THE BEASTS has a pro-life message where the good guys are going up against a supervillain who’s intent on destroying all life. The movie also promotes sacrifice to protect life. However, the supervillain is called a god. Also, the movie has about 21 obscenities and one light profanity, and a minor character makes two comments about yoga mysticism. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children.