I had disregarded the series after the second installment, but when I saw that this was not directed by Michael Bay I decided to watch it. This is what the Transformers movies always should have been. It’s fun and heartfelt, following a smaller story but with big action scenes. Sure, there’s too much “mean is funny” and some contrived character conflict, but it doesn’t detract too much from the movie as a whole. It all comes down to Bumblebee’s relationship with Hailee Steinfeld’s character, and they did that very well.

Closest Comparison: Transformers (2007), done better.