Review: Dominique Fishback and Anthony Ramos excel in 'Transformers: Rise of the Beasts'

Wait a hot minute here. Can a new "Transformers" movie actually be bearable?

Let's not get carried away, but the answer is a qualified "yes" since "Transformers: Rise of the Beasts," only in theaters, earns a pass as disposable summer escapism. It's way better than the five hunkajunk, based-on-a-Hasbro toy epics that director Michael Bay has been churning out since 2007, with critics hurling bricks while Bay laughed as he speed-dashed to the bank.

With Bay out of the picture, director Steven Caple Jr. ("Creed II") steps back from the "too much is too little" approach to let the story breathe for a change. It helps, just as it did with 2018's "Bumblebee," which starred Hailee Steinfeld as a teen who bonds with a junkyard Volkswagon Beetle. That kiddie charmer, directed by Travis Knight, set the stage for something less manic.

Like "Bumblebee," "Rise of the Beasts" is a prequel to the first "Transformers." The action, which takes place in Brooklyn and Peru in 1994 -- cue the hip-hop soundtrack -- revolves around yet another global threat from alien robots. It took five screenwriters to polish that cliché.

A quick catch-up: The good machines are still the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) as they morph into cars and monster trucks and take on the Terrorcons, whose dark god Unicron (a Darth Vaderish Colman Domingo) eats planets for fun with Earth up next. Enter the Maximals, novelty bots that transform into jumbo animals instead of four-wheeled vehicles.

Where are the humans in all this? Glad you asked. With Shia LeBeouf and Mark Wahlberg out front in the old franchise, it's been "Transformers: So White" until now. The diverse casting in "Rise of the Beasts" at least qualifies as a cultural advance.

Dominque Fishback ("Judas and the Black Messiah") excels as Elena Wallace, an aspiring archaeologist searching for the statue of an ancient Incan bird -- shades of "The Maltese Falcon" -- that holds one half of the Transwarp Key, a space-time thingie (please don't ask).

Wallace needs help and finds it in Noah Diaz, played by "In the Heights" musical and acting dynamo Anthony Ramos, an Afro-Latino who brings flesh-and-blood vitality to the role of this Army vet trying to support his sick younger brother (Dean Scott Vazquez). When Diaz steals a silver Porsche, he's suddenly facing off with the Autobot Mirage (a hilarious Pete Davidson).

The voicework is commendable throughout, with "Game of Thrones" Emmy winner Peter Dinklage investing a Terorrcon named Scourge with a grave, growling menace. And "Everything Everywhere All at Once" Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh brings vocal grit and grace to Airazor, a peregrine falcon with her own secret agenda.

Still, it's Ramos and Fishback who provide real human interest as Diaz and Wallace hit the Aztec wilds of Peru (yo, Machu Picchu) to find the other half of the Transwarp Key. The showdown of these digital gods and monsters is the same clanging, computer-generated mishmash that ends all these "Transformers" blockbusters with no purpose, logic or letup.

But for a while there, "Beasts" does rise above the herd. Enough to put it in the same league with the great bots of movie history -- Robby, Robocop, HAL, R2-D2, C-3PO, Wall-E, the Iron Giant, the alien from "Alien," the sentinels from "The Matrix" and all the Terminators? Not a chance.

"Rise of the Beasts" qualifies mostly as a promising step in the right direction.