Story
Set in 1994 Brooklyn, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is unable to find employment having left the army with a bad record. Much of his time is devoted to taking care of his younger brother, Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez), who has a medical condition. When Noah’s friend Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) suggests he steals a car for money, Noah reluctantly agrees and he chooses a silver Porsche. The car turns out to be Mirage, (Pete Davidson) an Autobot spy. Mirage takes over control of the car and Noah finds himself caught up in an intense war, with the Autobots and the Maximals (a race of advanced beast robots) on one side and the Terrorcons and their Predacon drones on the other. The Terrorcons are under the command of Unicron, a dark lord who wants to rule the universe. The Autobots have fled their home planet Cybertron, and are now searching for the Transwarp Key on Earth which will help them return home.
Meanwhile, Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), an expert in ancient artefacts, is studying a falcon statue when she inadvertently breaks it open, revealing the Transwarp Key. The Key immediately emits an energy pulse into the atmosphere, alerting Unicron to its presence. Unicron sends his army of Terrorcons, led by Scourge (Peter Dinklage), to recover the Key which can open portals through time. The Terrorcons and Autobots fight over the Key, which is unfortunately captured by Scourge. However, the Maximals, and their leader Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), advise the Autobots that the Terrorcons have only captured half of the Key. The other half is being kept by a group of humans living in Peru to prevent its easy capture.
Noah and Elena travel to Peru together with the Autobots and the Maximals to recover the other half of the Key. It is a perilous expedition and when all hope seems lost, Noah calls on all of his reserves to fight and defend planet Earth and his loved ones.
Themes
Science fiction; intergalactic wars; action/adventure
Violence
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has a lot of violence. For example:
- Many battles scenes with machine guns, swords, circular saws, missiles, blasts and explosions. Robots have their limbs chopped off and their heads pulled off.
- Two of the Autobots are killed but are later restored.
- The leader of the Maximals, a gorilla creature, has his arm chopped off and is set on fire.
- Noah is confronted by an armed guard who threatens to shoot him.
- Car chases in which many cars are smashed up.
- Noah suffers a few falls and tumbles and at one point is seen with blood on his face.
- Elena punches Noah.
- An explosion throws Elena, Noah and a security guard to the ground.
- Scourge pulls Noah out of a tunnel and punches him. Mirage intervenes and is kicked to the ground. Mirage transfers his body armour to Noah who then fights Scourge. Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, intervenes, willing to sacrifice himself. He and Scourge fight it out with the victor pulling the other’s head off.
Sexual references
There are no sexual references in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
There’s no substance use in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
Nudity and sexual activity
There’s no nudity and sexual activity in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
Product placement
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has some product placement. For example, Hasbro Transformer merchandise.
Coarse language
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has some coarse language.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is an action-adventure, Sci-Fi movie. It’s a prequel to Transformers (2007) and a sequel to Bumblebee (2018). The movie is fast moving and full of action violence. It’s also quite difficult to follow if you haven’t seen the other Transformer movies. The high level of violence and scary scenes make this movie unsuitable for children under 12 years and we recommend parental guidance for children aged 12–13 years.
The main messages from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts are to learn to trust those who are different from you but are on your side; and that good overcomes evil.
Values in Transformers: Rise of the Beasts that you could reinforce with you children are selflessness, teamwork, courage and bravery, perseverance, and inner strength.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts could also give you the chance to talk with your children about on-screen violence. Why does there need to be so much violence in this movie? Is the violence different because it is occurs between robotic machines? And is it OK for robots to be constantly at war because they’re not humans?