Transformer rise of the beast

SUNDAY UPDATE: In 68 overseas markets, Paramount/Skydance/Hasbro’s $110M opening weekend. Combined with $170.5M, coming in ahead of Offshore, and excluding China, the debut is 36% ahead of previous title, Bumblebee, which opened during the Christmas corridor in 2018. China was the best play for Rise of the Beasts with $40M, below the hoped-for $50M launch but still the second best start for a Hollywood film this year and with a strong audience score of 9.1 (tied with Bumblebee). Related Story Disney Greenlights 'Disney Junior's Ariel' Animated Series Inspired By 'The Little Mermaid' Mexico was up next with $7.3M at 902 locations, followed by Indonesia with $5.3M from 431 and the biggest ever start for a Transformers movie. Peru kicked off with a terrific $5M from 107 locations and the best opening for the franchise, for Paramount and best of 2023 (it’s not often Peru pops up in the Top 5 on a studio title – see marketing highlights below). Korea took $4.4M from 524 cinemas. Each of the above markets was a No. 1 bow save Korea where there is strong local competition. This is the biggest opening weekend for the Transformers franchise in a total eight markets:Indonesia, Argentina, Peru, Vietnam, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt and Bolivia . Rounding out the Top 10 are France ($3.8M), UK ($3.8M), Malaysia ($3.4M), Thailand ($3.3M) and India ($2.8M). Still to come are Australia/NZ and Japan. The IMAX debut was $16M globally including$9.6Mfrom overseas. This is the 4 thbest international...

Just when you thought you could trust any street vehicle or mechanical device to not come alive before your eyes, the Transformers movies are back with a seventh installment that takes us into the 1990s. Director Steven Caple Jr.’s prequel ( Transformers: Rise of the Beasts cast who portray them, and what else you may recognize the performers from. (Image credit: Paramount Pictures) Anthony Ramos (Noah Diaz) The cast’s lead human character, struggling New Yorker Noah Diaz, is played by Anthony Ramos, who In the Heights— which he reprised in Hamilton cast. Some of his most notable screen acting credits include the crime drama, Monsters and Men, and Oscar-winning romance A Star is Born from 2018, and his next major gigs include the Ironheart, a Twister“sequel” called Twisters, and a sci-fi drama currently on the Distant. (Image credit: Paramount) Dominique Fishback (Elena Wallace) Joining Noah on his adventure with the Transformers, where her archeological expertise comes in handy, is Elena Wallace — arguably the biggest role to date for Dominique Fishback, outside of her BAFTA-nominated role in the Judas and the Black Messiah cast as Deborah Johnson. Before then, she led the 2018 drama, Night Comes On, appearing in The Hate U Give the same year, starred in the Project Power, in 2020, starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson in Apple TV+’s The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey in 2022, and led Amazon Prime’s Swarm cast the following year. (Image credit: Paramount) Dean Scott Vazquez (Kris...

I t’s the early 1990s. A new subspecies of Transformer – the part-animal, part-robot Maximals – joins forces with Optimus Prime and his Autobots to fight against a ruthless foe, the Terrorcons, who are in the service of Unicron, a planet-munching monster deity. We know all this because every 10 minutes or so, the imbecilic bombast of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts grinds to a halt so that one or more of the characters can explain the story to us. You could argue that any film that requires this much leaden exposition to nail down its plot points really shouldn’t be trusted with heavy machinery. But then, smashing stuff up was always the point of the metal-for-brains Transformers series, the dumbest and noisiest of all the billion-dollar movie franchises. And the latest instalment certainly delivers on needless destruction and world-class stupidity. Plus points include a punchy soundtrack of 90s hip-hop, and Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, heroically holding their own as the hapless humans roped into the Transformers’ thunderous mess.

You son of a gun, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts — I’m back in. Consider me as shocked as anyone to be genuinely excited for more Transformers movies after the disappointing-at-best Age of Extinction and The Last Knight. The one-two combo of Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts is a course correction that unites beloved Transformer clans, introduces decent human characters, and spotlights metal-crunching action that’s an upgrade from the nondescript animated slop we’ve been served in Michael Bay’s last few movies. It’s certainly not going to win over the Academy (outside a possible special effects nomination), but director Steven Caple Jr. executes Rise of the Beasts as a get-the-job-done summer crowd-pleaser that makes me feel like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons again, only on a grander and more exciting scale. Picking up the story after 2018’s Bumblee, Rise of the Beasts sticks to the ancient era of 1994, giving it some comfortable distance from the stink of Transformers movies we try not to talk about anymore. Anthony Ramos stars as Brooklyn electronics wiz and ex-soldier Noah Diaz, who acts as the Autobots’ human correspondent, and as he comically grapples with the reality of mechanized aliens driving Earth’s highways, the irreplaceable voice of Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime reveals a new artifact of the day that must be recovered before it falls into the hands of the world-eating, planet-sized villain Unicron. It’s exactly as cookie-cutter a plot as you’d expe...