Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

I am not a big fan of the earlier movies in the Transformers franchise (to say the least) but I absolutely loved Bumblebee so I was interested to see where Transformers: Rise of the Beasts would land.  I went to see it yesterday and it definitely doesn't have the same heart as Bumblebee but I didn't hate it.  A world-eating transformer named Unicron (voiced by Colman Domingo) is seeking the Transwarp Key, which can open portals through space and time, on the homeworld of the Maximals, or cyber animals, but a group of them use it to escape to Earth.  A museum intern named Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishbeck) discovers half of the key hidden in an ancient artifact and accidentally activates it which calls Autobots, who are still stuck on Earth, and Terrorcons, who are searching for it for Unicron.  Meanwhile, an ex-soldier named Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is talked into stealing a Porsche 911 in order to sell it to pay for treatments for his younger brother who is suffering from leukemia.  When the Autobots are summoned, Noah is inside the Porsche when it is transformed into Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson) and he is eventually recruited by Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) to steal the key from the museum where he meets up with Elena.  They are attacked by the Terrorcon Scourge (voiced by Peter Dincklage) who steals the key but they are saved by the Maximal Airazor (voiced by Michelle Yeoh).  They eventually head to Peru in search of the other half of the key where they meet Optimus Primal (voiced by Ron Perlman) and the other Maximals.  The humans, the Autobots, and Maximals learn that they must work together to defeat the Terrorcons and keep the key from Unicron.  The story is convoluted with way too much exposition and much of the dialogue is incredibly cringe-worthy but it is still far superior to the Michael Bay movies (in my opinion).  The goofy interactions between Noah and Mirage are a lot of fun (I actually really liked Davidson's performance) and I found the juxtaposition between Noah's motivations and those of Optimus Prime to be very effective.  I also really enjoyed the final battle sequence (I love that Bumblebee now communicates with movie dialogue) because the effects look really good.  I think Bumblebee is still my favorite but I had a lot of fun watching this and recommend it to fans of big action blockbusters.