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Ok, so the trailer put me off this one. The animation felt empty, the style seemed to be biting the Spiderverse...I wasn't interested. BUT, I've been watching with my 9 year old (both of us big fans of Spectacular Spider-Man), and I'm here to admit I was wrong.

The show has won me over completely. The animation works SUPER well for most characters (May is hard to look at tho ngl), there is a ton of personality throughout the show, but most importantly it understands Peter's social world. It has Spectacular Spider-Man's energy but in a fresh coat of paint, and I have genuinely enjoyed the depth to which they're willing to paint character dynamics. Spidey action is nothing new, but his web-swinging has it's own flair which reminds me of the PS games. It's a great time if you're willing to let there be differences to the stories you've heard before, but it absolutely seems aligned with the original intent of many of the characters' intricacies in the books.

I went into this film expecting it to be mediocre at best, but my 9 year old loved the previews and asked to go. There was an early screening at our local theater, so we went, and dear lord, this was good. I am not well versed in Transformers lore, nor have I seen most of the films, so I'm not able to speak from a fan's perspective. With that being said, I now feel SUPER motivated to go watch and learn as much as possible about these characters. The main focus of the film on the relationship between Orion Pax and D-16 was an absolute emotional rollercoaster - and the action scenes absolutely had us on the edge of our seats. Every. Single. One. From the initial mining accident, to the race, to the train (and so on, don't want to ruin too much from the final act), each big action event seemed to one-up the last. I had an absolute blast and was not intending to go see this film twice, but I will absolutely be going back once it hits theaters for real.

Watched this with my son (what better way to enjoy Star Wars?), and he was on the edge of his seat the entire time. The Jedi training scenes resonated deeply with him, and I saw him go through so many of the same feelings I had when I watched A New Hope on VHS as a kid. I appreciate this approach to Star Wars so much and it's awesome to have a show like this to look forward to each week.

My son pointed out that while Sabine "looks" less like her Rebels animated character than the others who were adapted from that show to live action here, she by far is the closest to the character in terms of her spirit or energy. The scene in this episode with the cup was a perfect embodiment of this, the acting was just so good.