Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

image for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts

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Not suitable under 12; parental guidance to 13 (violence, scary scenes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
  • a review of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 16 June 2023.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 12 Not suitable due to high level of violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 12–13 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and scary scenes.
Children aged 14 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Classification: M
Consumer advice lines: Action violence
Length: 127 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Set in 1994 Brooklyn, Noah Diaz (Anthony Ramos) is unable to find employment having left the army with a bad record. Much of his time is devoted to taking care of his younger brother, Kris (Dean Scott Vazquez), who has a medical condition. When Noah’s friend Reek (Tobe Nwigwe) suggests he steals a car for money, Noah reluctantly agrees and he chooses a silver Porsche, which turns out to be Mirage, (voice of Pete Davidson) an Autobot spy. Mirage takes over control of the car and Noah finds himself caught up in an intense war between the Autobots, together with the Maximals (a race of advanced beast robots), and the Terrorcons, together with their Predacon drones. The Terrorcons are under the command of Unicron, a dark lord who wants to rule the universe. The Autobots have fled their home planet Cybertron, and are now searching for the Transwarp Key on Earth which will help them return home.

Meanwhile, Elena Wallace (Dominique Fishback), an expert in ancient artefacts, is studying a falcon statue when she inadvertently breaks it open, revealing the Transwarp Key. The Key immediately emits an energy pulse into the atmosphere, alerting Unicron to its presence. Unicron sends his army of Terrorcons, led by Scourge (voice of Peter Dinklage), to recover the Key which can open portals through time. The Terrorcons and Autobots fight over the Key, which is unfortunately captured by Scourge. However, the Maximals, and their leader Optimus Primal (voice of Ron Perlman), advise the Autobots that they have only captured half of the Key. The other half is being kept by a group of humans living in Peru to prevent its easy capture.

Noah and Elena travel to Peru together with the Autobots and the Maximals to recover the other half of the Key. It is a perilous expedition and when all hope seems lost, Noah calls on all of his reserves to fight and defend planet Earth and his loved ones.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Science Fiction; Intergalactic Wars; Action/Adventure.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is a lot of violence throughout this movie, including:

  • Many battles scenes with machine guns, swords, circular saws, missiles, blasts and explosions. Robots have their limbs chopped off and their heads pulled off.
  • Two of the Autobots are killed but are later restored.
  • The leader of the Maximals, a gorilla creature, has his arm chopped off and is set on fire.
  • Noah is confronted by an armed guard who threatens to shoot him.
  • Car chases in which many cars are smashed up.
  • Noah suffers a few falls and tumbles and at one point is seen with blood on his face.
  • Elena punches Noah.
  • An explosion throws Elena, Noah and a security guard to the ground.
  • Scourge pulls Noah out of a tunnel and punches him. Mirage intervenes and is kicked to the ground. Mirage transfers his body armour to Noah who then fights Scourge. Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots, intervenes, willing to sacrifice himself. He and Scourge fight it out with the victor pulling the other’s head off.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • The Transformers are all large, mechanical creatures which are quite scary. In particular, Scourge is very large and has a menacing voice and red eyes.
  • The Maximals are also quite scary-looking, particularly Optimus Primal, a large mechanical gorilla with orange and green eyes, that beats and thumps its chest.
  • There are a lot of loud sounds, explosions and sudden events which are quite scary.
  • Unicron has a very deep, reverberating voice which is quite scary.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • The Transformers all have armour attached to their bodies, such as automatic weapons, rotary saws and/or swords on their arms, etc.
  • A large spaceship opens up, revealing a fiery inferno inside.
  • The Porsche transforms into Mirage who is very large and picks up Noah by the waist.
  • A portal rises out of the ground which sends out fire into the sky. Pools of fire are seen across the ground.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Noah is caught up in a car chase, inside a vehicle that he has no control over. He is quite scared as nothing reacts to his attempts to steer or brake the car.
  • The Predacons are spider-type robots who move very fast and hide in dark spaces, waiting to pounce on their victims.
  • One of the Autobots is killed by Scourge and his eyes, which are lights, go out.
  • Alena and Noah enter a tunnel where they find a circular paving stone. Alena manages to work out the code which opens it up and they go into a very dark cave. They are being stalked by the Predacons.
  • Noah and Alena enter a tube-like tunnel to disengage the Transwarp Key. Alena has to cross a fiery lake.
  • The portal causes a huge, dark cloud to appear over Earth which sends fireballs to Earth.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Hasbro Transformer merchandise.

Sexual references

  • None noted.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • Hell
  • Oh God
  • Arse
  • Damn
  • Shit.

In a nutshell

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is an action-adventure, Sci-Fi movie. It is a prequel to Transformers (2007) and a sequel to Bumblebee (2018). The film is fast moving and full of action violence. It is also quite difficult to follow if the viewer hasn’t seen the other Transformer movies. The high level of violence and scary scenes make this film not suitable for children under 12 and parental guidance is recommended for children aged 12 – 13.

The main messages from this movie are to learn to trust those who are different from you but are on your side; and that good overcomes evil.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Selflessness
  • Teamwork
  • Courage and bravery
  • Perseverance
  • Calling on inner strengths.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • Why does there need to be so much violence in this movie? It is mostly unrealistic as it occurs between robotic machines but does it seem acceptable for robots to be constantly at war because they’re not humans?