Bumblebee

Returning to the world of Transformers with a notable increase in coherence (I can actually tell the robots apart this time, and I can tell what the action is doing!), "Bumblebee" takes a familiar "troubled teen meets visitor from another planet" storyline and plays it for all the emotional beats it can get. There's a nice warmth between Hailee Stanfield and the yellow-sometimes-a-Volkswagen-Robot-in-Disguise that means that even while this film is resolutely not really exploring much new territory, it's at least getting the fundamentals right. The setting of 1987 is, perhaps, slightly overplayed (there's a succession of about four or five background songs within about five minutes which feels like trying too hard to give the era), although it at least picks some of the less-beaten-tracks to go down. THis is more of a case of "good when judged on the curve of previous Transformers movies" than necessarily "great viewing on its own" - and perhaps it does play things too safe - but it's nicely enjoyable for all that.