Weekend Watch: Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, The Crowded Room

The robots' return and trauma for Tom Holland

Image Credit: Paramount Pictures

Welcome to the latest edition of Weekend Watch, in which I recommend (or occasionally warn against) movies or TV shows I’ve been checking out. This week, the Transformers franchise goes beastly, and Tom Holland’s in trouble. Follow James on Twitter: @jamwhite

Since kicking off its live-action incarnation in 2007 with the first Michael Bay effort, the Transformers franchise has been more of a mixed bag than a sack filled with jelly tots, woodlice, and industrial bolts. And often as disappointing.

In Bay’s run, there was a solid start followed by ever more diminishing returns; the movies got bigger and louder, but stupider and somehow less fun. Then came LAIKA boss Travis Knight and Bumblebee, which returned a measure of humanity to the series with its lightheaded prequel story and a winning turn from Hailee Steinfeld.

Regrettably, Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts falls somewhere between those two stools (stools one suspects would transform into annoying, small, chittering robots and run off to cause chaos somewhere). And while it avoids some of the more lecherous, tech-fetishist lows of the Bay era, it also doesn’t hit the heights, either. Plus, despite hewing closer to the heartfelt nature of Bumblebee, it also falls into the trap of too much exposition and running around after a thingy.

The thingy in question is a warp portal key coveted by the immense living machine Unicron (voiced in growly fashion by Colman Domingo), which needs the tech so it can travel around the galaxy and consume planets. But it has been snatched from his grasp (or that of his hench-bots) by the Maximals, Transformers who left Cybertron and set up home on a fauna-rich planet and have opted to disguise themselves as animals rather than the cars, planes, etc. we’re used to. Using the key, they made it to Earth many years ago and have been hiding out in remote regions (though it’s a little tough to imagine big robots that sort of look like animals but not really hiding all that well).

Cut to 1994, and a young man named Noah (Anthony Ramos), a former soldier, is trying to find work to support his family and get his ailing brother the healthcare resources he needs. When in his desperation he turns to a criminal associate and agrees to steal a car from a ritzy event, he encounters Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson, who has steadily been annoying me in movies this year and is only slightly less infuriating by dint of not being physically present here), an Autobot disguised as a Porsche.

Noah is soon drawn into the Autobots’ latest mission, which is to… well, I don’t want to spoil it, but it essentially involves finding something important before the bad guys do. You get the idea. Also dragged along for the ride by virtue of her history knowledge is museum worker Elena, played by Dominique Fishback.

There are allies, enemies (in this case, Unicron’s snarly underlings the Terrocons, led by Peter Dinklage’s Scourge, who has a particular ability so useful against our heroes that you wonder why he doesn’t utilise it much more often) and, of course, the Maximals, voiced by the likes of Ron Perlman and Michelle Yeoh, who do what they can with thankless roles that are information dump delivery drivers more than they ever are characters.

Steven Caple Jr., a director who has done good work in the indie world and with Creed II, here aims for emotion and funk but is steamrollered by the demands of giant CG machines punching each other. It all ends up so belaboured and repetitive (and featuring possibly the lamest riff on Iron Man to hit screens in years) that you’re more likely to be watching the clock than the screen. Ramos and Fishback also do what they can, but regularly get lost in the chaos.

The next big-screen Transformers outing is an animated prequel, and honestly, that might be the best arena for these characters. Or at least that might just be thanks to my memories as a 10-year-old watching the 1986 version. Nostalgia-crusted goggles or not, Rise Of The Beasts can’t compete.

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts is in UK and US cinemas now.

Image Credit: Apple TV+

The first thing you should know about The Crowded Room is that you should go in with as little foreknowledge as possible. In fact, I’d recommend skipping the (admittedly painterly and beautiful) opening credits sequence each time. And do not google the miniseries’ inspiration. That way… Look, to say any more is to offer too much in the way of hints, which sadly the show itself divulges anyway.

The second thing you should know about The Crowded Room is that leads Tom Holland and Amanda Seyfried, indeed the entire acting ensemble (also including the likes of Sasha Lane, Emmy Rossum, Thomas Sadoski, Will Chase and Jason Isaacs) is excellent. The series around them is never quite on the same level.

Adapted by Akiva Goldsman from… Nope, not giving that away, it’s ostensibly the story of Danny Sullivan (Holland), who is arrested following a shooting in 1970s Manhattan. Psychologist Rya Goodwin (Seyfried) is asked to consult and interviews Danny, trying to figure out why he doesn’t seem to remember pertinent details of the incident and whether he was truly to blame. Oh, and to discover what happened to his accomplice, Ariana (Lane).

There’s plenty of fractured family dynamics in Danny’s past and Holland brings the character to life with sympathy and pain (to such a degree that the actor has since said he suffered playing the role and is taking a break from acting to recover). He’s endlessly watchable, but the show itself tries to be too clever for its own good and makes it all too easy to figure out what is going on. Early episodes are frustrating and ultimately feel more like filler than useful build-up. But once The Crowded Room engages with the heart of the story, things pick up.

The first three episodes of The Crowded Room are on Apple TV+ now. I’ve seen all 10.