Here's a question prompted by the last 30 years of Transformers movies: "Is it even possible to make a good movie out of this shit?" Bumblebee is the answer, and it's a legitimately good one. Nothing about it ever threatens to edge into "great" territory, but it's winsome, earnest and good-hearted, and that's more than enough to make it easily the best movie in the series. The story is largely unimportant—alien-robot puppy-car has to stop a robot-alien car-plane and a helicopter-car alien-robot (voiced by Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux) from Skyping the Decepticons to come burn Earth to a cinder—but most of what works in Bumblebee works on a character level, not a plot one. The novelty of genuinely liking a Transformers movie for its characters (!) might wear off pretty soon, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. by Bobby Roberts