I lost interest in Transformers after the first few films, but Bumblebee wasn't bad. The film universe could use something of a soft reboot - or even a hard one - if they're going to keep making more.

To me the Transformer movies (the 2 I've seen anyway) failed to capture the spirit of the cartoons. I never realized they made 6 of them.

The Netflix Transformers CG animated mini-series is what the actual movies should have been like, and a follow-up to them is what I’m hoping will be greelit.

The only part of the first Michael Bay movie that I enjoyed was the Scorponok fight against the army in the desert.  I gave the 2nd movie a chance, but found it to be even worse, with the addition of racial stereotype transformers.  I completely lost interest in the series at that point and skipped the 3rd movie.  When I saw the first reveal trailer for the 4th movie (Age of Extinction), it actually piqued my interest somewhat.  But that interest was completely dashed when I later saw this movie poster:

Optimus Prime riding Grimlock like a horse?  Consider my childhood memories of G1 Transformers raped.  So, I skipped that movie as well, and had no interest in The Last Knight either.

I will admit that the Bumblebee movie piqued my interest again, but it was mainly because of the scenes on Cybertron.  I worried that would be a very small portion of the film, so I didn't make a serious effort to get to a theater while it was playing.  I'll probably stream it at some point.  I don't get how the mainline Transformers movies banked so much money.  

The international box office iirc, like a lot of other big CGI spectacles that get critically panned. Art films get accolades but simple stories full of setpieces and explosions transcend language and cultural barriers.

Bumblebee was good. The rest of this franchise is a trash fire. I seriously worry for those who actually watch that garbage.

i loved Transformers 1 & 2

after that it went downhill

It was the intro of the first movie that impressed me initially.  I really enjoyed the entire base attack at the beginning, up until that part ends and we get to the classroom scene when we realize that the script sucks.  But except for the stupid fart joke with the baby, that battle sequence made me feel like a kid again while watching.  The Scorponok fight is similar for me:  Great scene, marred by that stupid credit card joke part, which could've been funny... but wasn't.

My thoughts were:  Terrific battles and transformations... even the story itself wasn't bad (it's a sci-fi movie based on a kid's toy, what do ya expect).  They just need to ixnay the Jar-Jar Binx moments and fix the script for the next movie, but unfortunately, Transformers 2 embraced all of the bullshit and ended the chances for this series to be taken seriously as good entertainment.

Here's hoping that the new trilogy is better like Bumblebee was, but I have my doubts.

Personally, I had problems with the transformations. Apart from Optimus Prime, most robot forms don't look like the vehicle they transform into. Starscream had a yellow cockpit on his chest, wings in the back, red and blue on his chest and legs in the comics. In the movie, he's a grey hunk of metal that through the magic of CGI transforms into a jet.

This.  The original Transformers, licensed by Hasbro from the Takara toy lines, all had distinctive and unique designs and personalities.  

The Bay Transformers are just variations on the same thing.