Human characters muck up the fun of ‘Transformers: Rise of the Beasts’

“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” wants to be “Avengers: Infinity War.” It’s got a band of heroes, an unstoppable team of powerful villains and a race to acquire mystical McGuffins, the use of which will destroy the Earth and every life on it. Okay, so Thanos only wiped out half the life on Earth (and throughout the rest of the universe). “Rise of the Beasts” still wants to tell a very similar story.

If only the filmmakers had made this movie about the giant transforming robots instead of centering it on the human characters that we don’t really care about, they might have had something special.

Set in 1994, “Rise of the Beasts” introduces us to Noah (Anthony Ramos), a former soldier who’s struggling to keep his family’s heads financially above water, and Elena (Dominique Fishback), a talented but put-upon museum intern. They find themselves drawn into a battle to protect the planet from the evil planet-consuming Unicron (Coleman Domingo) and his henchbots led by Scourge (Peter Dinklage).

To do that, Noah and Elena must team up with Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) and his Autobot crew, as well as the Maximals and their leader, Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman). A race to pieces of a powerful Cybrotronian artifact, and lots of transforming robot carnage, ensues.

The biggest problem is that if you’re coming out to the theater to see a “Transformers” movie, you’re probably not doing it to see the human characters. You want to see Optimus Prime kick booty. You want to see robots transforming into various vehicles. You want to see robots in disguise, not some dude stressing about his family’s money problems.

Yes, you get a big opening fight between the Maximals and Scourge. But then the movie takes us into this first act that focuses on Noah struggling to help his family and Elena getting pushed around by her boss.

That would be fine if these characters were compelling, but they aren’t. They’re standard characters with standard motivations and even though Ramos and Fishback are talented actors, there’s only so much they can do.

While this causes the first act to drag, things start to pick up when Mirage (Pete Davidson) enters the story. Mirage’s interactions with his fellow Autobots are enough fun to keep the film from completely sinking until the action scenes spool up.

While there’s nothing we haven’t seen before in “Rise of the Beasts” (and I’m pretty sick of the slow-mo hero shot where a projectile whizzes past a main character, barely missing them), there’s still a bit of enjoyment to be found in watching giant robots pulverize each other. “Rise” could use some of the Bayhem that defined the action sequences in Michael Bay’s “Transformers” films, but the battle scenes save this movie.

Overall, “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is a mediocre summer blockbuster. It shoots for something more grand but in the end, the human story inserted into the script to bring us into the world of the movie and give us someone to relate to is the very thing that almost kills it.

2 ½ Indy fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13