Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)

In 1994, in Brooklyn, New York, Noah Diaz is trying to hold his life together with little more than grit, a military background in electronics, and the desperate need to keep money coming in for his younger brother Kris Diaz's cancer treatment. He is trapped between job rejection and necessity, and when his friend Reek pressures him into one last criminal gamble, Noah agrees to help steal a parked Porsche 911 that promises fast cash. The theft quickly goes wrong in a way Noah cannot possibly predict: the sleek sports car is not just a car, but Mirage, an Autobot hiding in plain sight. Before Noah can even process that impossible truth, Mirage begins speaking to him, and Noah is dragged into a larger war he never asked to join.

At almost the same time, across the city, Elena Wallace is working in a museum as an intern and artifact researcher, studying an ancient falcon statue marked with the Maximal symbol. She is drawn to it because of its strange craftsmanship and unknown origin, and when she investigates it more closely, the statue cracks open and reveals half of the Transwarp Key hidden inside. The moment the artifact is exposed, it sends out an energy pulse that ripples far beyond the museum, alerting the Autobots. Optimus Prime, the steadfast leader of the Autobots, immediately answers the signal and calls in the others, including Arcee and Bumblebee, to move toward the key. The discovery transforms Elena's quiet academic curiosity into the ignition point of an interstellar crisis.

Noah's theft attempt and Elena's discovery collide in the same storm of consequence. Mirage, who has been contacted by Optimus Prime about the mysterious signal, realizes that Noah has been pulled into the situation and tries to talk him down rather than have him arrested or killed. Noah, still thinking in practical, human terms, just wants to survive the day, but he is forced to accept that the people and machines around him are not only alive, they are in the middle of a cosmic war. The Terrorcons, the monstrous enforcers of the planet-eating Unicron, arrive on Earth drawn by the key's signature. Their leader is Scourge, a ruthless trophy-hunter and herald of Unicron, and he brings violence with him. The first clash outside the museum explodes into a street battle between Autobots and Terrorcons, with the city itself becoming a battlefield as civilians are thrown into panic and Elena is caught in the middle.

The reason the Transwarp Key matters is revealed in layers of danger. It is not simply a relic; it is a device capable of opening portals through space and time, a tool Unicron wants because it would let him consume planets even faster. The key is not whole, however. The artifact Elena found is only one half, and the other half is missing. That missing piece becomes the next obsession of the heroes and villains alike. For the Autobots, the key offers hope of returning to Cybertron, their long-lost homeworld. For Unicron, it is a means to expand his endless hunger. Noah is dragged into the Autobots' mission not because he seeks glory but because Mirage, in his own irreverent way, chooses him as an ally, and Noah's tech skills become a lifeline for the team.

As the conflict in New York escalates, the Terrorcons prove they are not merely raiders but a coordinated force. They strike with precision, and in the chaos Bumblebee is killed in battle. Optimus Prime is left seething with grief and fury, and the loss becomes one of the emotional engines of the rest of the story. The Autobots are forced to retreat and regroup, and Noah is now fully entangled in their mission. Mirage keeps pulling him deeper into the war, and Noah's reluctant involvement begins to shift from self-preservation toward something more committed, especially once he realizes that the same forces threatening the Transformers are also threatening every human life around him, including Kris's future.

The next great turn comes when Elena deduces that the second half of the Transwarp Key is hidden in Peru. The clue leads the group out of Brooklyn and into the wider world, away from city streets and into the jungle, where ancient history has been hiding in plain sight. To get there, the Autobots travel inside Stratosphere, an old, battered Autobot plane that becomes the unlikely carrier for the humans and robots on the long journey south. The movement from New York's hard urban edges to the humid secrecy of Peru shifts the story from pursuit to revelation. The heroes are not just chasing a weapon; they are chasing the buried history of the Maximals themselves.

In Peru, the group discovers the deeper truth: the Maximals have been hiding on Earth for centuries, and the second half of the Transwarp Key has been kept safe by a human tribe that bonded with them long ago. The Maximals themselves emerge as living proof that the war with Unicron did not begin on Earth but was carried there by survivors. Their leader, Optimus Primal, is wise, wary, and burdened by history. Through him, the audience learns the backstory of the Maximals' flight from their homeworld. Long before Noah, Elena, or the Autobots ever touched the key, Unicron had attacked the Maximal homeworld, and his herald Scourge had hunted the key there as well. In the past, Apelinq, the previous Maximal leader, fought Scourge as the others escaped. Knowing escape is the only chance for the rest, Apelinq names Optimus Primal the new leader and then sacrifices himself. Scourge catches Apelinq off guard and stabs him through with a giant blade, killing him and clearing the path for the remaining Maximals to flee. That death is not simply a battlefield casualty; it is the moment the Maximals' future is born.

That history is not presented as distant legend alone. It shapes everything that follows, because Scourge still carries the memory and brutality of that attack into the present. When he and the Terrorcons strike again in Peru, the violence becomes personal. During the fighting, Airazor, one of the Maximals, is corrupted by Scourge's dark energy. Her mind and body become a battlefield, and the corruption threatens to turn her into another weapon of Unicron. In one of the film's most painful turns, Optimus Primal is forced to kill her at her request, putting her down before the corruption can fully consume her. The act is devastating because it is both mercy and loss, and it reinforces the film's recurring theme that survival often comes at a terrible cost.

Before that attack and its aftermath, the heroes learn another grim truth in the Peruvian valley: the raw Energon deposits there are inert. Optimus Prime briefly hopes they can revive Bumblebee using the Energon, but the discovery crushes that possibility. The valley looks rich with promise, but the energy is unusable without immense power, and the attempt to restore Bee becomes another dead end. The emotional consequence is clear. The team has traveled across the world with hope, only to find that the body of their fallen friend cannot be brought back by ordinary means. That failure deepens Prime's anger and grief, while Noah and Elena begin to understand just how high the stakes are and how little room there is for mistakes.

The real scope of the threat becomes fully visible as the heroes learn that Scourge does not merely want the key for himself. He is preparing to summon Unicron. The Terrorcons move with terrifying confidence because they serve a force that literally consumes worlds, and their mission is to open the way for him. The key's ability to bridge space and time means the conflict is no longer about a single location or a single planet; it is about the possibility of giving Unicron direct access to Earth. As the heroes rush toward the climax, every alliance becomes more fragile and every delay more dangerous. Noah, who began the story trying to steal a car, now stands in the middle of a war that can erase his brother's future, his own life, and the planet itself.

The final confrontation unfolds at the Terrorcons' towering structure in Peru, a grotesque mechanical fortress built around the mechanism that will activate the Transwarp Key. The battle splits into two simultaneous struggles. Outside and across the tower, the Autobots and Maximals clash with the Terrorcons in a furious, physical fight, metal crashing against metal as each side throws everything it has into the struggle. Inside, Noah and Elena must do something more delicate and more dangerous: they sneak through tiny access tunnels to reach the console in the middle of the tower and enter the code that can stop the portal. The contrast sharpens the tension. One battle is brute force; the other is a race against time in claustrophobic darkness.

Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal fight with the weight of entire species behind them. Scourge is finally pushed to the edge by their combined resistance, but he is never an easy enemy to overcome. The machine of Unicron's plan is already in motion, and the portal threatens to tear open before the heroes can shut it down. Noah and Elena crawl through the narrow tunnels with the fate of the world resting on a sequence of numbers and an ancient mechanism they barely understand. Their cooperation has matured from awkward necessity into trust, and that trust is what makes the ending possible. Elena's academic insight and Noah's practical determination become the human counterpart to the Autobots' and Maximals' physical war.

At the height of the fight, the code is entered successfully, and the portal is stopped before Unicron can fully break through. The timing is crucial; if the heroes had failed, Earth would have become the next meal of a cosmic predator. Scourge is defeated by the combined pressure of the Autobots and Maximals, with Optimus Prime and Optimus Primal helping turn the tide. Unicron's plan is denied, but he is not destroyed, and the film leaves that horror alive in the background. The victory is real, but it is not clean. It comes after sacrifice, loss, and the permanent reshaping of every character's life.

When the smoke clears, the survivors stand in the aftermath of a war that has revealed what they are to one another. The Autobots, unable to return to Cybertron, choose Earth as their new home. It is a statement of acceptance and belonging after years of exile, and they vow to continue protecting the planet alongside the Maximals. The line lands not as a triumphant slogan but as a commitment forged in battle. Earth is no longer just a temporary hiding place or a battleground; it becomes a home worth defending.

Elena receives recognition for discovering the temple in Peru, confirming that her work has reshaped the world in ways no museum ever could have anticipated. Her arc ends with public acknowledgment, though the deeper truth is that she has become one of the few humans who truly understands the Transformers' history and purpose. Noah's ending is more grounded but no less significant. He goes to what he thinks is a security job interview, only to learn he is actually being recruited by the secret military organization G.I. Joe, and that they will cover Kris's healthcare. The reveal turns his struggle from personal desperation into something larger: a future where his survival and his brother's treatment are no longer impossible dreams.

The final emotional beat belongs to Noah and Mirage. In the mid-credits scene, Noah repairs Mirage using junk Porsche parts from Reek, bringing the story back to the car that started everything. Reek learns that the car is a Transformer, which is both a comic payoff and a sign that Noah's world has permanently changed. What began as a theft in Brooklyn becomes a friendship with a machine who can become a partner, a weapon, and a reminder that trust can emerge from the least likely places. The film closes with the sense that the war is not over, that Unicron still exists, and that the alliance between humans, Autobots, and Maximals is only just beginning, but the immediate crisis has been stopped and the people who lived through it have already become something different from who they were at the start.

The ending shows the heroes stopping Scourge and preventing Unicron from reaching Earth, but not without major sacrifices and losses. In the final scene, Noah gets a new future, Elena gets recognition for her work, the Autobots choose Earth as their new home, and a G.I. Joe recruitment tease reveals that Noah's story is not over yet.

The ending, told simply, is this: the last battle is won, the portal is shut, and Earth is saved for the moment. Scourge is destroyed, the Transwarp Key is broken, Mirage is brought back through Noah's repair work, Bumblebee returns to life, and Optimus Prime survives after being pulled back from the collapsing portal by Noah and Optimus Primal.

The full ending, scene by scene, unfolds like this:

The final battle builds around the Transwarp Key as Scourge and the Terrorcons try to use it to bring Unicron to Earth. The Autobots and Maximals fight to stop them while Noah and Elena work close to the device itself. Noah uses the armored exo-suit created from Mirage's damaged body to keep fighting, and Mirage's sacrifice becomes part of Noah's combat role in the last battle.

During the fighting, Mirage is gravely damaged while protecting Noah, and his body is transformed into the exoskeleton that Noah wears into the battle. Bumblebee, who had been deactivated earlier, is revived when the key's energy pulse activates the Energon beneath the valley, bringing him back into the fight. The battle then turns again and again on these moments: the Autobots and Maximals push forward, the Terrorcons resist, and the heroes try to stop the Key from opening the way for Unicron.

Scourge and Optimus Prime face each other directly, and Optimus Prime kills Scourge. Even after Scourge falls, the threat is not over, because the control system has been damaged and the portal remains unstable. Optimus Prime then destroys the Transwarp Key himself, choosing to end the portal even though doing so puts him in danger of being pulled into it.

As the Key breaks and the portal collapses, Optimus Prime is nearly sucked into the void. Noah and Optimus Primal move in at the last moment and pull him back to safety. The collapsing portal traps Unicron away from Earth for the moment, and the remaining Terrorcons are destroyed in the fallout of the collapse.

After the battle, the surviving Autobots and Maximals are left on Earth without a way to return to Cybertron. Optimus Prime accepts this and declares Earth their new home, and the Autobots remain with the Maximals as protectors of the planet. Optimus Primal and the Maximals survive the ending and stay with the Autobots.

Noah's story ends with a quieter scene away from the battlefield. He goes to a job interview, hoping for work that will help his life and his family. At that interview, he is recruited into a secret organization, G.I. Joe, through the presentation of a card carrying the G.I. Joe logo. The film treats this as a doorway into Noah's next chapter, not a closed ending for him.

Elena's ending is more straightforward: she receives recognition for her discovery and work connected to the Peruvian temple and the Transwarp Key. The film leaves her as a person whose research matters and has been publicly validated.

For the main characters at the end: Noah survives, gets a new job opportunity, and is recruited by G.I. Joe. Elena survives and receives recognition for her discovery. Optimus Prime survives after being saved from the collapsing portal, and he stays on Earth with the Autobots. Optimus Primal survives and remains with the Autobots on Earth. Mirage is badly damaged earlier, but Noah repairs him and he returns to life. Bumblebee is restored to life by the Energon surge. Scourge dies at Optimus Prime's hand. Unicron is not destroyed, but he is left stranded when the portal collapses.

Yes. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts has a mid-credits scene, and there is no scene after the credits finish.

In the scene, Noah is working on a beat-up old car he has been repairing with parts from his friend Reek. Reek doubts the car will even start, but when Noah activates it, the car transforms back into Mirage, confirming that Mirage survived and has been restored.

There is also a separate, more important reveal earlier in the credits sequence: Noah is approached for a secret government job and is shown a card with the G.I. Joe logo, setting up a crossover possibility.

Noah Diaz, an ex-military electronics expert in Brooklyn, tries to steal a Porsche to sell for money, only to discover the car is actually Mirage in disguise. Mirage becomes his unexpected partner after that encounter and stays central to Noah's story as the human lead who helps pull him into the larger conflict over the Transwarp Key and Earth's safety.

The Transwarp Key is the Maximals' most important technology, able to open portals through space and time. Unicron wants it so he can more efficiently consume planets, and he sends Scourge and the Terrorcons to recover it for him.

Optimus Primal is the leader of the Maximals, a beast-mode faction of Cybertronians. After Unicron attacks the Maximals' homeworld, their previous leader Apelinq sacrifices himself so the others can escape, and Primal leads the surviving Maximals to Earth using the Transwarp Key.

Elena Wallace is a museum intern who studies an ancient falcon statue marked with the Maximal symbol. When she accidentally breaks it open, she discovers a hidden piece of the Transwarp Key, which draws the Terrorcons to Earth and pulls her directly into the conflict alongside Noah and the Autobots.

Scourge is Unicron's herald and the leader of the Terrorcons. He is the one sent to obtain the Transwarp Key, and his actions drive the main conflict as he leads the attack against the Autobots and Maximals on Earth.

Yes--Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is generally not ideal for young children, but it is more of a PG-13 action film than an adult-only movie.

Potentially upsetting or objectionable elements for children or sensitive viewers include:

• Frequent sci-fi violence: robot battles, explosions, shootings, stabbings, decapitations, and characters being thrown around or crushed.
• Intense peril and suspense: chase scenes, surprise attacks, threatening moments, and a few jump scares.
• Some frightening imagery: menacing giant robot creatures, destroyed bodies/limbs on robots, and threatening villain designs.
• Mild blood and injury: a few cuts, scrapes, and visible blood on a human character in at least one scene.
• Language: some profanity and crude terms, though not extreme by PG-13 standards.
• No sexual content or nudity reported in the parent guides.

If you are screening for a child, the main concerns are violence, scary moments, and language rather than sexual content or substance use.