The early critical consensus on upcoming Transformers spin-off Bumblebee heralds it as the best movie in the series.
In fact, it currently has a 100 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, making it one of the most positively reviewed films of 2018 - even beating Avengers: Infinity War.
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Launched by Michael Bay in 2007, the live-action Transformers franchise has been a global box office juggernaut - hauling in US$4.4 billion worldwide to date from the five movies released so far.
But critically, the films have suffered generally abysmal reviews.
Until Bumblebee.
Set for release in New Zealand later this month, the spin-off not only "reinvigorates" the Transformers series, it's so good that it "redeems" all of the films in it, according to reviewer Jim Vejvoda at IGN.
"It wisely brings the series back to basics in its character-driven storytelling and simplified approaches to both Transformer designs and visual effects, and by jettisoning the excess and nonsensical storytelling that had come to define the franchise," he writes.
In his Variety review, Peter Debruge declares it "the movie that fans of the 1980s animated series wanted all along".
"Bumblebee is, easily, the best Transformers movie. Heck, it's probably the only genuinely good Transformers movie, with nary a caveat to be found," writes William Bibbiani for The Wrap.
Below is a list of the Transformers live-action movies, along with their Rotten Tomatoes score and Metacritic score:
- Transformers 58 61
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 19 35
- Transformers: Dark of the Moon 35 42
- Transformers: Age of Extinction 18 32
- Transformers: The Last Knight 16 27
- Bumblebee 100 73
The new film is set for release in New Zealand on December 20, with select sneak peek sessions before that.
Newshub.
