Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

Struggling to get by, an ex-soldier's hardships rapidly increase (Anthony Ramos as Mr. Diaz), his younger brother in need of medical attention (Dean Scott Vazquez as Kris Diaz), his own application for work denied.

He's accused of being unable to work productively upon a team, and even though he consistently excelled, he can't move past one stingy hiccup.

Financial pressures and tormenting temptation lead to inaugural vehicle theft, but within the unsuspecting parking garage, lies a wild unsubstantiated mystery.

He's accidentally broken into a Transformer at a rather formidable time, for an ancient Transwarp Key has just been discovered, and Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) is recalling the troops.

Unfortunately, the key has been sought for thousands of years by the minions of the planet devouring Unicron (Colman Domingo), and they too reside on Earth, and hope to acquire the interstellar device.

The Transwarp Key would give Unicron the ability to travel anywhere in space without moving, without spiritual gifts or coveted spice, then consume unsuspecting planets.

Noah and the knowledgeable Elena (Dominique Fishback) have no wish to see their planet destroyed, and agree to help the aggrieved Autobots who see the Transwarp as their ticket home. 

But only half of the key has been discovered, the other half hidden in the jungles of Peru.

In which awaits another ancient manifestation. 

Of unheralded honourable Cybertronic beasts.

Ancient legend and contemporary endeavours boldly reveal our kinship with animals, the wild symbiotic sleuthing that provocatively impressed for thousands of years.

With our technological prowess and seemingly limitless expansion, have we not forgotten the lessons they taught us, as we mythologically depended upon survival?

If a God indeed created the planet would he or she not indeed also love its animals, and see such a grand impregnable imbalance as a misguided perversion of biodiversity?

Would he or she not then send calamitous storms and materialize hostile inclement climates, to cut our enormous numbers down and ensure less reliance on imbalanced slaughter?

As we consume without rationalized reckoning our planet erupts with meteorological tension!

Is it a striking divine criticism? 

Of unsustainable global disparity?

Transformers: The Last Knight

Can science, myth, religion, history, the aristocracy, the people, the British, Americans, the privileged, the self-made, the men, the women, humankind, and Autobots, be chaotically yet adventurously, ideologically yet practically, intergalactically yet locally, or quite simply extracurricularly brought together in a wild brainiacally styled jewelled Nile Summertime extravaganza, complete with a spellbinding mix of the brash and the delicate which epically unites risk, love, service and dedication, to thoroughly entertain while multilaterally seeking knowledge, like a trip to New York, or a voyage down under?

Yes.

I would say, "yes, yes they can."

"Affirmative" even.

A constructive ebb and flow.

It's always fun when the new Transformers films are released but I'll admit I've never enjoyed one as much as The Last Knight.

I mean, I'll actually watch this one again.

It's number 5 too.

So many metamorphic developments.

Plucky little Izabella (Isabela Moner), resiliently in search of friends and family.

The hyperreactive robotic butler (Jim Carter as Cogman), who flamboyantly yet earnestly adds neurotic inspirational spice.

Agent Simmons (Jon Turturro) is back, theorizing and analyzing his way to the heart of the narrative's conceit.

Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), youthfully and mischievously contemporizing more than a millennia of British legend.

England and the United States romantically come to terms?, the couple in question perhaps creating an invincible universal super being?

Plus secret entrances, spontaneous sushi, cheeky self-reflexive criticisms of blockbuster music, Cuba once again warmly featured in a 2017 American mainstream release, prophetic books preserved, getting-away-with-it explanations, scenarios, Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl), First Nations fluidity, Tony Hale (JPL Engineer), whales.

The wild script energetically shifts from sentiment to shock to certitude to sensation, manifold short scenes eclectically yet straightforwardly stitched together with (en)lightninglike speed and ornate dishevelled awareness.

Fascinated, 'twas I.

I've often thought these films don't focus enough on Transformers, but Last Knight presents a solid shapeshifting/organic blend, its biological proclivities overwhelming desires to see Transformers discursively deliberating, relevant contributing human factors, caught up in the thick of it, creating solutions intuitively their own.

In fact, the subplot involving Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) was my least favourite part of the film.

The extraordinary examination of British History and its relationship to transforming-lifeforms-from-space easily made up for it though.

I'd love to see Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice during the witching hour.

How did they move those rocks?

They be pretty freakin' huge.

Power Rangers

Patiently waiting for millions of years buried deep within the Earth's crust surrounded by gold, Zordon (Bryan Cranston) and Alpha-5 (Bill Hader) strikingly reanimate after the universe cosmically brings together 5 curious misfits to courageously battle Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks) and Goldar.

These Power Rangers initially doubt their abilities and require sage tutelage to discover strengths residing within.

Their newfound super powers help them to gain the confidence they never knew they possessed, eventually, and as they embrace their intense warrior spirits, they become more popular in high school.

They aren't blinded by their social prestige, however, for to be a Power Ranger one must act with humble composure.

Regardless of race, sexual orientation, or creed.

Will they develop the unconscious altruistic personas they need to harmoniously combat as one, or will mighty Goldar acquire the Zeo Crystal and enable Repulsa to nuclearly unleash pure wrath?

They must command self-sacrificing teamwork.

And will find the necessary stamina.

If they can only believe.

Dean Israelite's Power Rangers takes a look at the lighter side of irrepressible super human excellence.

The rangers are as endearing as they are unconventional in their pursuit of congruent formidable elasticities.

The film lacks the depth of Iron Man or Thor, but that doesn't mean it fails to moderately compensate in terms of pluck and do-gooding know-how.

Watching as the 5 troubled unique feisty individuals kitschily come together as a daunting unified unacknowledged sleuth was captivating indeed, even if I was perhaps much older than the film's target audience.

Their friendship knows no bounds and they will take them villains down.

A neat examination of thinking globally while acting locally.

Listened to favourite pop hits afterwards.