Cybertron has fallen and the Autobots are escaping the robot Decepticons. Autobot Bumblebee is sent to Earth to find a new base of operations for his fellow Autobots. After an encounter with Decepticon Blitzwing, Bumblebee has his voice box torn out and his memory damaged before he decides to hid in the shape of a Volkswagen Bug. He is soon found by teenager Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) who is suffering from the loss of her father and resents her mother for remarrying. Charlie finds Bumblebee in a junkyard and takes Bumblebee home (unaware that there is more than meets the eye to her new car). Soon she discovers her car is a robot and they embark on a journey together to help Bumblebee (with the Decepticons striking a deal with the US military).

BUMBLEBEE has a sense of nostalgia for me as I grew up during the 1980s and I have to say this entry in the TRANSFORMERS franchise is the closest to the cartoon. The 1980s soundtrack (including the song which is a nod to the TRANSFORMERS animated movie) strikes the perfect chord with me as a fan that grew up on the original cartoon and reading the Marvel Comics series (which oddly was better than the cartoon and definitely the animated movie which doesn't age well). It has well developed characters and it is refreshing to see a TRANSFORMERS movie without the juvenile humor which populated each of the Michael Bay directed movies. I think BUMBLEBEE is so good because it has a different scriptwriter and director from the other five movies. Christina Hodson nails the difficulty and awkwardness of being a teenager while making it a great movie for the entire family without it being a movie where the boy and girl might not get together (as it would distract from the central plot). Travis Knight directs this fun and funny story about a teenager girl and her robot. BUMBLEBEE works as a prequel to the Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS movies and I don't miss the characters from the other movies at all, but it would have been great to have a cameo from the government guy from the first three movies. If future installments in the TRANSFORMERS franchise can be like this, sign me up for each and every movie. BUMBLEBEE is at least better than the last four TRANSFORMERS movies and may even be better than the first movie.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
BRINGING BUMBLEBEE TO THE SCREEN
THE STORY OF BUMBLEBEE (3:54)
THE STARS ALIGN (7:04)- the main cast of BUMBLEBEE
BUMBLEBEE GOES BACK TO G1 (10:02)- going to the G1 designs which made many artists on this film happy to take a crack at it
BACK TO THE BEETLE (6:20)- a look at Bumblebee's original VW Bug look from the cartoon which they used for this movie
CALIFORNIA CRUSIN' DOWN MEMORY LANE (19:57)- production design and costume design of BUMBLEBEE

BEE VISION: THE TRANSFORMERS ROBOTS OF CYBERTRON- a who's who of the various G1 Transformers in the opening scene of the movie
SECTOR 7 ARCHIVE- AGENT BURNS WELCOME TO SECTOR 7 and a motion comic of SECTOR 7: BATTLE AT HALF DOME (a print comic version is also included with combo pack)

19 minutes of deleted and extended scenes which include a deleted subplot with Charlie's ex-friends
Hilarious outtakes with John Cena

Also in this combo pack are a print version of the motion comic, the movie in standard definition on DVD, and a code to a digital copy of the film

FINAL ANALYSIS: BUMBLEBEE is one of the better TRANSFORMERS movies and fans of the movies (and G1 cartoon) will want to own this one.

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