Bumblebee (2018)
Directed by Travis Knight
On the run in the year 1987, Bumblebee finds refuge in a junkyard in a small Californian beach town. Charlie, on the cusp of turning 18 and trying to find her place in the world, discovers Bumblebee, battle-scarred and broken. When Charlie revives him, she quickly learns this is no ordinary yellow VW bug.
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6 films that influenced Bumblebee
What critics say influenced Bumblebee
Bumblebee can be described as The Breakfast Club meets Transformers.
There are a few chuckles to be had about Alf being appointment television viewing, the sheer number of band shirts Charlie seems to own, Judd Nelson’s fist pump at the end of The Breakfast Club, and nods to the Transformers animated film and a throwaway Go-Bots gag that will leave fans of the old school series in stitches, but overall they feel like they exist for the sake of being there, not for any particular function.
And “The Breakfast Club” proves its pop culture immortality with yet another invocation — “Bumblebee” only ever uses less than a minute of the film, but it does so repeatedly and as the punctuation of key moments.
She turns eighteen in the brief span of the story, which is set in 1987 and features a recurrently explicit tribute to “The Breakfast Club.”
She confides in him the hurt of losing a loved one and shares the rebellious majesty of The Breakfast Club.
(Bumblebee is a big fan of The Breakfast Club, but he doesn’t like the Smiths or Rick Astley.)
His previous effort was the delicately melancholy animated film Kubo and the Two Strings, and he was also lead animator on such creepily charming pictures as Coraline , The Boxtrolls , and ParaNorman .
Knight, C.E.O. of the increasingly inventive studio Laika, was an animator on the Laika films Coraline and ParaNorman, as well as the director of Kubo and the Two Strings.
Su primer proyecto en la silla principal fue la maravillosa Kubo and the Two Strings, pero su background en la animación stop-motion se extiende a ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, y Coraline, y no se puede negar lo mucho que influyó en su visión venir de ese campo.
Once Laika began making feature films, Knight became an animator for Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls.
Transformers impresario Michael Bay produced this friendly prequel, but it was directed by Travis Knight, who made Kubo and the Two Strings and worked on Laika’s other stop-motion ‘toons (Coraline, etc.), with a screenplay by Christina Hodson (Unforgettable).
Though the film is live-action, it is directed by animator Travis Knight of Laika Studios ( Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, Knight’s feature debut).
Es por ello que celebro su despido, y la inclusión de Travis Knight (encargado de la animación de la genial “ Kubo and the Two Strings ”) en la silla del director de “Bumblebee”.
This is thanks to a very sharp screenplay by Christina Hodson and the steady directorial hand of Laika veteran Travis Knight, making his live action debut after his breakout animated sleeper Kubo and The Two Strings.
Animation director Travis Knight (Kubo and the Two Strings), in his live-action debut, saw the franchise and asked “what if we made a Transformers movie that satisfied people other than die-hard toy collectors?” Bumblebee is proof of that concept, and watching it allows you to forget that it is a film literally made by a toy company.
It’s from director Travis Knight, his second film — and first live-action one — after his charming animated debut, Kubo and the Two Strings .
Knight previously made the brilliant Kubo and the Two Strings.
I take this to be the influence of director Travis Knight, who has never worked in live action before: he directed Laika's masterpiece Kubo and the Two Strings , and has served as animator on every film released by that studio (which is owned by his dad, though he's got the talent for it not be solely nepotism).
After a major defeat for the “Autobot resistance” in their war against the evil Decepticons, scout Autobot B-127 (the voice of Dylan O’Brien: Maze Runner: The Death Cure , American Assassin ) is sent ahead to Earth by Optimus Prime (the voice of Peter Cullen: Treasure Planet ) to prepare a new base for the Autobots.
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Just like Steinfeld did in The Edge of Seventeen , she renders Charlie as a teenager with complexity and agency.
Steinfeld, as appealing here as she was in “The Edge of Seventeen” and the “Pitch Perfect” movies, goes some way toward making Charlie more than just a regulation misfit heroine.
It doesn’t stars Megan Fox, Shia LaBeouf, or Mark Wahlberg: True Grit and The Edge of Seventeen star Hailee Steinfeld takes the leading role.
As she’s proved in movies like True Grit and The Edge of Seventeen, Steinfeld is great at playing determined, charismatic teens, and Charlie is smart, funny and easy to root for.
Every time it seems like the movie is headed toward an interesting melding of “The Edge of Seventeen” and “The Iron Giant,” however, it’s interrupted by the convoluted plot or an action sequence that fails to engage.
After breaking out in 2010's True Grit, Steinfeld has transitioned from strong supporting parts to exceptional leading roles, like The Edge of Seventeen and now Bumblebee.
But instead of casting yet another white male lead, a habit Spielberg himself has been reluctant to kick if Ready Player One (2018) or The Post (2017) are any indication, Bumblebee’s protagonist Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) provides a much-needed jolt to the scrap heap of a classic, but creatively defunct franchise.