BUMBLEBEE | FAMILY MOVIE REVIEW INFORMATION FOR PARENTS AND KIDS

"BUMBLEBEE"
(2018) (Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena) (PG-13)

QUICK TAKE:: Sci-Fi/Action: A lonely, grieving teen befriends a sentient robot that's landed on Earth and had its memory core and vocal processor damaged and is now being hunted by other sentient robots that want to destroy it.

PLOT:

It's almost Charlie Watson's (HAILEE STEINFELD) 18th birthday but she's anything but happy and that's mostly due to her father being dead. While her younger brother, Otis (JASON DRUCKER), and their mom, Sally (PAMELA ADLON), seemingly having moved on -- what with her mom having since married Ron (STEPHEN SCHNEIDER) -- Charlie is still racked with grief and misses her dad terribly. It doesn't help that she works a thankless job at the local seaside amusement park -- and doesn't seem to realize that her coworker, Memo (JORGE LENDEBORG JR.), is attracted to her -- and must contend with the usual mean, rich girls at school.

Things change when she's given an old VW Bug for her birthday by an older friend, and when she sets out to work on it in her garage, she's shocked when it suddenly transforms into a sentient Autobot. Little does she know that he's B127 (voice of DYLAN O'BRIEN), a soldier from another world, sent to Earth by his commander, Optimus Prime (voice of PETER CULLEN), to set up a base following the fall of their home planet, Cybertron, to the evil Decepticon robots. Upon arriving on Earth, B127 had a run-in with a local military unit led by Jack Burns (JOHN CENA), but was then attacked by a Decepticon that damaged his vocal processor and memory core to the point that he doesn't know who or what he is.

But he senses a friend in Charlie and vice-versa, and she gives him the name Bumblebee, with the two enjoying each other's company and her teaching Bumblebee how to hide from everyone else back in the guise of the old VW Bug. Little do they know that two Decepticons -- Shatter (voice of ANGELA BASSETT) and Dropkick (voice of JUSTIN THEROUX) -- are searching for Optimus Prime, and when Charlie fixes Bumblebee's radio, that sends a signal the two Decepticons pick up. When they arrive on Earth, they fool Jack and Dr. Powell (JOHN ORTIZ) into believing they're the good guys and Bumblebee is who they need to worry about. But it doesn't take long before all involved realize who the villains and heroes are.

WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?: They might, especially if they're fans of the "Transformers" movies or anyone in the cast.

WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: PG-13: For sequences of sci-fi action violence.

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