Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 (2025 Movie)

***Hot Wheels Battle Force 5*** is a 2025 Science Fiction film. It is a reboot of the Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 Animated TV series that ran from 2009 to 2011. It entered Development as a Hot Wheels Live Action film in the early 2000s and several animated series were produced by Mattel. Following the success of Mattel Films first film Barbie (2023) the Hot Wheels film which was already in production began filming in 2024. The film was based on the Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 series. It was a major critical and commercial success.

## Synopsis

A Stunt Driver is recruited by a higher dimensional cyborg to save a ruined Multiverse from mutant barbarians and evil robots. He forms a team of drivers called the Battle Force 5 made up of a huntress, sound expert, martial artist and two genius brothers. They race and battle through inter-dimensional raceways on a quest to save the multiverse.

## Plot

For billions of years a powerful higher dimensional type 5 alien civilization known as Sentients built upon the Multiverse and observed as trillions of life forms flourished and advanced. They evolved and became more powerful and more advanced while the other life forms sought to takeover. They created countless inter-dimensional worlds called Battle Zones between the many universes of the vast multiverse. Each of them linked several worlds allowing anyone with access to Battle Keys to conquer more worlds.

The Sentients kept the Multiverse in harmony but a billion years ago the Sentient race fell into civil war and became vulnerable to attacks from other species such as the Sark and Vandals. The Vandals are a race of barbarous amphomorphic animals from the Earth in an Alternative Universe where the solar system became a binary star system. The Sark are a race of robots that served the sentients until their AI evolved and their leader Zemerik became a tyrant. The sentient civilization collapsed and few survivors remained leaving the multiverse in ruins and threatening all of creation.

In present day, a sentient survivor named Sage has been fighting Sark and Vandals for thousands of years and has been trying to prevent the Sark and Vandals from conquering more worlds through the Battle Zones. Sage tries to retrieve a Battle Key from a Lava Battle Zone leading to a new sector of universes with Planet Earth among them. She is attacked by the Vandal warlord Kalus whom she barely escapes from. She's been running low on power and technology as her advanced sentient vehicle called the Mobias Command Center, commonly called the Mobi, is damaged due to several sentient battles. She's cornered by the Vandals and is forced to escape to the nearest portal leading to planet Earth sacrificing her Mobi through self-destruction. After landing on Earth Sage is forced into hiding, she accesses information on humanities society through the Internet and builds a secret underground base.

She finds a stunt driver in the area named Vert Wheeler whom she sees potential in despite his lonesome drifter lifestyle. Vert Wheeler proves he can be a hero through a hostage situation set up by Sage. Sage recruits him as the leader of a team called Battle Force 5 and they seek out teammates to retrieve more Battle Keys and save the Multiverse. They recruit a hunter, Agura Ibaden, a British noble Stanford Isaac Rhodes IV, A asian martial artist named Zoom Takazumi and two strategist and tech support brothers Sherman and Spinner Cortez. Sage mixes Sentient Technology with human vehicles to create five weaponized vehicles used by the team. More portals into various Battle Zones start forming around the world forcing the team to travel across the planet using portals created by Sage to enter battles for the Battle Keys. The teammates become a family and grow better at combat as they enter several Battle Zones including a factory zone, forest zone, ruined zone and castle zone. When Battle Force 5 loses one battle the team follows the Vandals into an alternate Earth known as Earth 78 where European imperialism is still an issue due to Napoleon never rising to power. The team encounters Stanford's doppelgänger who's an usurper seeking the royal crown. After witnessing the decent into power hunger of his doppelgänger, Stanford decides to become a true hero and become less egotistical.

The Vandals loot the nations of the world plundering gold, silver and other goods and Vert Wheeler battles duels Kalus for the first time. Stanford manages to steal the Battle Key from the Vandal Hatch and blackmails the Vandals threatening to lock them in this world forever. The Vandals retreat and Battle Force 5 goes back to the Prime reality of Earth. In one battle, the Sark Homeward and Earth are linked to a mirror universe where Battle Force 5 is a terrorist organization that took over the government after stealing power from a sentient survivor they killed. The doppelgänger of Vert Wheeler has become a power hungry warlord who destroys planets after finding Battle Keys. The team battles the doppelgänger team who's aided by Zemerik. Fortunately, Battle Force 5 escapes with the Key. Zemerik learns about the sentient survivor killed by the mirror universe team. Zemerik discovers the survivor was seeking the Cycloid Zone an artificial dimension at the center of the Multiverse that stabilizes the laws of physics and keeps all matter in the multiverse from disintegrating at the subatomic level.

After a few missions, Sage discovers that matter has grown unstable due to a lack of sentients working on the Cycloid Zone and reveals the mirror universe is in the first of several sectors the team must traverse to reach the zone. Battle Force 5 is forced to split up to search for the Cycloid Zone, Zoom and Agura seek the Battle Keys while Sage and the rest of the team travel to the Mirror Earth Universe to steal Battle Keys needed to reach sectors connected to the Cycloid Zone. Zoom is captured by the Vandals whom Hatch tortures for information using pseudoscience and sentient technology. The Vandals realize capturing the Cycloid Zone could give them access to all sectors of the Multiverse. The Vandals race through several worlds they have access to and while Agura struggles to save Zoom.

Battle Force 5 reaches the Cycloid Zone a megastructure shaped like a gyroscope. They travel around and Sherman and Spinner Cortez work on fixing the machinery of the zone. Zemerik reaches the zone with his Zurk guards and they travel around the zone trying to destroy the team. The Sark manage to capture Stanford while Vert Wheeler gets into a chase with Zemerik. Meanwhile, Agura saves Zoom and they follow Kalus's army across the multiverse and into the Cycloid Zone. A three way battle between Battle Force 5, The Sark and Vandals begins. Agura gets into a battle with Kalus and the team buys time for the Cortez Brothers to fix the zone. Zemerik defeats Vert Wheeler and totals his vehicle before pushing it into an antimatter power plant causing an explosion that ruptures the entire facility. He picks up Vert and reveals he intends to use the zone to recreate the Multiverse in his own image. Vert escapes by jumping off the raceway and traveling through the zone through its adjusted gravity. Zemerik finds the Cortez Brothers and incapacitates Spinner before confronting Sherman. Zemerik implants a virus into their computer system to alter the laws of physics to his will. Sherman gets into a fist fight with Zemerik.

Sage rides with Zoom and battles Zemerik's right hand man Zug. They steal Zug's vehicle and travel to the damaged section of the zone to help the Cortez Brothers. Zoom threatens to destroy Zug if he doesn't surrender. However, Zemerik manipulates his alterations of the laws of physics to create a vortex behind them that can suck them into prison dimension called the Krypt Zone. This separates them from Zug and allows him to join Zemerik by his side. Vert Wheeler had traversed the zone using a Zurk vehicle he stole. He finds Zemerik taunting Sage by disintegrating several worlds she loved. Vert attacks Zemerik and duels him with a nanotech sword. Zemerik battles with a whip and sword before Vert throws him off the raceway and into the vortex. Zug loses balance and is sucked into the Vortex with his master. Vert cuts the wire to the sentient zone's core and the vortex closes. Sage enters the Sentient core and uses her sentient skills to work on it. She's able to undo the virus but the damages due to the battle are putting the station in danger. Battle Force 5 forms an attack formation called the flying wedge and destroys several Vandal vehicles. They warn Kalus that's he's risking the destruction of his world. They offer him the Battle Key to the Mirror Universe's sector if he retreats as an exchange. Kalus accepts the deal and flees with his surviving warriors. The team stabilizes the cycloid zone and Sage recalibrates the zone.

While doing so, she gains a Battle Key to the ruined sentient homeworld. The team asks if Zemerik and Zug will ever return and she claims the Krypt Zone is a dimension where there is no time and space is meaningless. She claims Zemerik used it to imprison many of his enemies. Battle Force 5 swears to help Sage rebuild her civilization and seek out more sentient survivors.

In a post-credits scene, Zemerik is seen in the Krypt Zone slowly forming and reforming. He's hears Zug's voice but is unable to find him.

## Cast

* Nicholas Hoult as Vert Wheeler
* Jamie Campbell Bower as Stanford Isaac Rhodes IV
* Kat Graham as Agura Ibaden
* Aramis Knight as Zoom Takazumi
* Jacob Elordi as Sherman Cortez
* Joel Courtney as Spinner Cortez
* Olivia Wilde as Sage
* Sujaya Dasgupta as Grace
* Patrick Dempsey as Zeke
* Dwayne Johnson as Sheriff Johnson

### Voice Cast

* Keith David as Kalus
* Troy Baker as Krocomodo
* Hank Azaria as Sever
* Tilda Swinton as Hatch
* Zachary Quinto as Zemerik
* Fred Tatasciore as Zug

## Production

### Development

On January 30, 2003, Columbia Pictures announced they had gained exclusive rights to developing a feature film based on the toy line Hot Wheels with McG attached to direct. Although unwritten, the premise involved a young man "trying to reconcile with his father. It's a kid who steals his dad's racecar and ends up going through a sort of Back to the Future portal into this world, and he has to reconcile his relationship with his father." In 2006, McG said that he dropped out as director and chose to produce instead. The film was to be produced by Columbia Pictures, Flying Glass of Milk Films and Silver Pictures, under license to Mattel.
In 2009, with no recent developments, the film was put into turnaround, and the rights were handed over to Warner Bros. Pictures. Joel Silver took over producing with Matt Nix writing the script.

On June 17, 2011, it was announced that Legendary Pictures was developing a film based on Hot Wheels due to the success of Fast Five by developing an edgier film. On July 10, 2013, Simon Crane and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo were named as the frontrunners to direct the film, with Art Marcum and Matt Holloway writing the film, intended to be more Mission: Impossible than The Fast and the Furious. On September 28, 2016, Justin Lin signed on to direct the film, which will be produced through his production company Perfect Storm Entertainment. On August 1, 2017, Lin revealed that the film was still in development. It was speculated that the film would be released as a computer animated direct sequel to 2003's Hot Wheels: World Race and will be receive additional animation development from Playground Games who collaborated with Mattel in 2017 to create the Forza Horizon 3: Hot Wheels video game. However the option expired and returned to Mattel.

In late January 2019, Mattel Films and Warner Bros. Pictures agreed to partner on a Hot Wheels film.
It was announced on September 25, 2020, by The Hollywood Reporter that Warner Bros. has hired Neil Widener and Gavin James to write the film.

On April 25, 2022, it was announced that Bad Robot Productions will produce the film. On January 23, 2023, Dalton Leeb and Nicholas Jacobson-Larson were announced to write the film.

In May 5th, 2024 the film entered production and a teaser was released revealing the film was a reboot of the Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 Animated Series from 2009.

On December 7th, 2024 a trailer was released.

On April 29th, 2025 the film was released.

### Music

The Cartoon Theme song was covered by Linkin Park in 2025 for the film. Several other songs were used such as Houses by Great Northern, Blinding Lights by the Weeknd. Machine by Imagine Dragons, Coast by Hailee Steinfeld. Take a Little Ride by Jason Aldean.

## Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 73% based on 313 reviews and an average rating of 7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Hot Wheels Battle Force 5 may be convoluted but it's writing and action scenes are enough to entertain even the most grounded moviegoers." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.

## Trivia

Unlike the show which featured new customs for Battle Force 5 vehicles, the film used popular Hot Wheels die-casts.

## Future

Following the films success, Mattel announced plans to continue the franchise. Two ideas were pitched including a sequel introducing Krytus as the main antagonist. Plus an animated continuation was also considered.