Over a decade in and the Transformers franchise has finally found its buzz.

Oh, Transformers. Where did it all go wrong?

As an 80s child and an avid viewer of the original series, it’s hard to describe the nostalgia-fuelled joy I felt when they announced a full-blown big screen Transformers was coming. As much as I love The Transformers: The Movie (which was more or less a feature-length version of the TV series), this felt next level. How wrong I was.

Ok, so the very first entry in this new franchise wasn’t an entire write-off but after that, it was all downhill as the four (yes, four) sequels saw diminishing returns, if not in box office dollars, then certainly in terms of quality, with last year’s The Last Knight marking the absolute nadir of the franchise thus far.

This was an IP with so much potential, yet ultimately reduced to nothing more than a bombastic, CGI mess more concerned with tedious slow motion, creepy up-skirt shots of Megan Fox, and truly terrible jokes than anything that made the original concept unique. By the time The Last Knight hit cinemas with all the grace of a pair of swinging Decepticon testicles, the game appeared all but up.

There are so many reasons for the series’ problems it’s hard to put a finger on just how and why it so spectacularly missed the mark, but if one were forced to lay the blame on anybody’s doorstep in particular, Michael Bay would undoubtedly be at the top of the hit list.

As the director of every one of the first five instalments, there’s nobody that should shoulder the blame for the franchise’s failings more than Michael Bay. Transformers has been dying a slow and painful death for quite some time now and Bay’s determination to turn the entire thing into his personal toy box, like some kind of overgrown man-child, has only sped up the demise.

Yet, something feels different this time. Although Bumblebee marks the sixth Transformers entry so far, it also represents the high-water mark for the series and with Michael Bay finally stepping down from directorial duties, we’re finally shown just what the franchise is capable of.

At the cusp of 18 and attempting to find her place in the world, Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) stumbles upon a broken and battle-scarred Bumblebee – a young alien refugee from war-torn Cybertron. Taking the form of a beat-up Volkswagen Beatle, the lovable but clumsy Bumblebee soon wins the heart of his new teenage companion as they’re thrust into a race against time to locate Autobot leader Optimus Prime and stop an invasion of Earth by the nefarious Decepticons - all while Charlie desperately attempts to hold her personal life together.

For a movie franchise that had been scraping away for many years, The Last Knight really did represent the very bottom of the creative barrel for Transformers. Not only that, it also represented the lowest box office returns for the entire series - a fact that caused its studio, Paramount, to return to the drawing board for some serious soul searching (assuming they have a soul).

And, against all the odds, they’ve succeeded in pulling the Transformers franchise back from the brink with the kind of endeavour and heart that would’ve been unimaginable even a couple of years ago. By all accounts, Transformers looked out for the count but in the plucky style of its titular hero, Bumblebee has swooped in to save the day.

While the exact reasons surrounding Paramount’s change of heart may never be known, it’s safe to assume director Travis Knight had a huge part to play in it. Certainly one of the boldest decisions in the history of the franchise, the hiring of Knight may have appeared an odd call at first, yet, in retrospect, it was the perfect move to make.

As the mastermind behind Laika and the director of perhaps the studio’s finest moment – the wonderful Kubo and the Two Strings – Travis Knight’s brand of cerebral, heartfelt family entertainment seems like the antithesis of everything Transformers stands for, yet this emotional grounding has been precisely what the entire series has been screaming out for.

The guy clearly has a knack for emotionally resonant storytelling and character-building in a way that Michael Bay patently doesn’t, so to say the decision to shunt the director and his infamous filmmaking style into the background - to be replaced by a newer, brighter model - was a smart one would be something of an understatement.

Bumblebee is a shrewd back-to-basics approach that distils its story down to the very essence of what Transformers should be – a pure piece of childhood escapism. It takes an enormous, often unwieldy, world and boils it all down to an admirably modest “boy and his dog” – or rather “girl and her intergalactic, shapeshifting robot” – narrative.

It’s an absolute breath of fresh air for a bloated franchise that had long since lost itself in convoluted nonsense and messy, overblown CGI. Yet, while these factors are certainly still there to some degree, they’re mercifully few and far between, as Bumblebee finds a way to elevate itself above cheap thrills and the kind of destruction porn we’ve become accustom to.

Borrowing from some of the best in the family-friendly fantasy game, Bumblebee incorporates the adventure and childhood companionship of E.T. and The Iron Giant while adding an unmistakable Transformers spin to produce something that may not feel particularly original, but comes stuffed with more heart than all five previous instalments combined.

Although the plot goes nowhere unexpected, Bumblebee’s beauty is in its simplicity, as the pared-down approach gives the story and action ample time to breathe and evolve. Bumblebee’s solid emotional core is evident throughout and serves the film’s action particularly well, anchoring even its most ostentatious smashy-crashy stuff in something solid and tangible.

Central to all this is Hailee Steinfeld who, thanks to some admirably dedicated writing, as well as the actors’ natural talents, crafts a character full of nuance and depth rarely seen before in the franchise. Not only does Charlie’s friendship with B-127 feel natural and entirely justified, their connection feeds directly into the character’s fears, insecurities, and desires in clever and smartly crafted ways.

Loss and grief are an ever-present throughout the film, with the death of Charlie’s father informing her motivations and her bond with an entirely CGI creature that could’ve easily fallen flat otherwise. As character motivations go, parental death is far from the most original out there, yet it plays out well to simply and efficiently explain Charlie’s bond with Bumblebee and to give us good reason to cheer her on as the film progresses.

While the story has its nuances, Bumblebee’s writing certainly sticks to the broader side of the tracks with dialogue you could affectionately describe as on the nose. Considering the franchise its part of, it’s hardly surprising the film paints its world with such broad, colourful brush strokes, as characters talk and act with a sense of cartoonish theatricality that, while OTT, is never less than entertaining.

Charming and eminently likeable, Hailey Steinfeld is exactly the protagonist Transformers has been dying for from day dot. Broody without becoming irritating, with a heart-breaking vulnerability that belies her surly appearance, Steinfeld’s Charlie is a fully formed, relatable teenage outsider simply trying to find her way in the world and as far away from Shia LeBeouf as you can possibly get.

Alongside her, John Cena is clearly having a blast in a performance full of scenery chewing and gurning exuberance, yet his brash military shtick plays perfectly within the surroundings. Much like former WWE colleague Dwayne Johnson, Cena is well aware of his strengths as a performer as he showcases not only strong action chops but a pleasantly surprising comedy aptitude that means he never takes himself too seriously in the role.

Human characters have become somewhat collateral damage in the Transformers universe over the years, often playing second fiddle to the robotic CGI mayhem around them. Yet, for the very first time, the writing goes to great lengths to put them at the very heart of the action, as talented scribe Christina Hodson works hard to ensure they’re not cut adrift and left lost in the hum of the carnage.

It also helps that the film’s CGI is far less fussy than anything we’ve seen before in the series. Simple yet effective, the design of the Transformers and the action surrounding them pops precisely because of its relative low-key nature, as Travis Knight wisely avoids a two-hour barrage of incomprehensible computer-generated messiness in favour of short, sharp set-pieces that pack a punch then move on.

Ditching the overly complicated character designs that plagued the Bay years, both Autobots and Decepticons are streamlined to look more in tune with their original animated counterparts and the difference to the film’s tone is palpable. With an admirably simple, almost child-like, aesthetic more akin to Big Hero 6’s Baymax than the sleek machines we’ve seen thus far, Bumblebee in particular is the perfect embodiment of the character he was in the series and a great example of how less is definitely more in the world of Transformers.

Bumblebee’s design works perfectly for what the film is aiming for and his streamlined, beat-up look is just the right fit for the film’s lo-fi period feel. The 80s look, tone, and sound are heavy handed at times and certainly bank on the momentum caused by the likes of Stranger Things, yet the film rises above cheap nostalgia by working hard on character development and allowing the setting to feel as natural as possible.

With overt nods to everything from E.T. to The Breakfast Club, Bumblebee is an unapologetic love letter to a cinematic era that Spielberg and John Hughes built. It gleefully harks back to a brand of filmmaking that embraced imagination and adventure without losing site of the need to build emotional foundations. The film is an unashamed nostalgia piece but has the goods to back itself up and ensure a thoroughly satisfying viewing experience for all ages.

It’s taken over a decade to get there but the Transformers franchise has finally found its soul. Under the guidance of Laika mastermind Travis Knight, Bumblebee mixes the emotion and adventure of his directorial debut, Kubo and the Two Strings, with a huge dose of 80s nostalgia to produce something thrilling, heart-felt, and – most importantly – fun. Big and broad, Bumblebee is certainly predictable, yet it’s utterly entertaining in all the ways a Transformers movie should be which, led by the charming lead performance of Hailee Steinfeld, breathes new life into a franchise that had long since run out of gas.