Transformers One

4 outta 5

After several “live action” installments of the Transformers franchise, the series returns to its animated roots with Transformers One. However, there was so much CGI animation in the series’ previous films, that it’s hard to make much of a distinction between live action and animation by now. Which isn’t a bad thing. The look of this movie recalls the 1980s TV series that spawned it all. And it is very fast paced with lots of action, and some good character moments and some very funny bits. There are some neat and unexpected twists about the origins of the robots in disguise in Transformers One, proving there is still an AllSpark of life in this franchise.

On the planet of Cybertron, Transformer robot miner Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) is searching for the Matrix of Leadership, an ancient item of power that has been lost to time. With his buddy, D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) they yearn to prove themselves to be a match for the larger Transformer robots who can change shape. Pax throws them into a race and end up impressing the Transformer leader, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm). With their new friends, Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key) they discover the ancient Transformer, Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne). There is a deep, dark secret being kept from Orion and his friends, and the more they learn, the more their robot bodies evolve. But the steadfast friendship between Orion and D-16 heads towards an inevitable confrontation.

This is a prequel to the series that hits a lot of key lore bits, probably the most prequel-y bit is that the franchise leading characters of Optimus Prime and Megatron were buddies in their youth as Orion Pax and D-16. The narrative cliché of the enemies that were originally friends is pretty worn out but works here as the script makes their buddy relationship seem genuine. They have a good dynamic of Orion being the one who wants to explore the world while D-16 thinks the miner job is what they should be doing. The vocal performances by Hemsworth and Henry are very fun at the start and they become more like their classic characters, and even by the end that Hemsworth sounds a lot like the original Peter Cullen voiced Optimus. D-16’s evolution across the film from miner to megalomaniac is interesting. Once they can transform, he has that iconic arm cannon that pops up, and he does some shockingly violent things. A lot of the violence in all the Transformers movies would be R-rated if they were humans but as they’re robots they can literally rip each other apart.

A franchise favourite in the series is Bumblebee and Key’s energetic vocal stylings makes B-127 a standout. He is introduced sifting through garbage on the sub-levels of Cybertron and he’s gone nutty all by himself, living with fake robots cobbled together from garbage. And when Orion knocks off the head of one of the fake robots, B-127 freaks out and starts hollering that his friend has died. And when B-127 is finally able to change his form, he seems very enthusiastic that he has a facemask and energy knife hands while he comically chops robots up by accident. Johansson as Elita-1 is their miner manager, and she is happily showing the guys how to do their jobs as she is much better at being a miner than the rest of them. When they end up in the big wide world, she is mostly just annoyed at how incompetent they are.

Hamm’s Sentinel Prime is the nice on the outside, mean underneath type of character Hamm is very good at portraying. When he starts to reveal all the horrible things he’s done to the Transformers without their knowledge, he revels in his evil. With all the exposition and lore that comes with an origin story, Fishburne as Alpha Trion gets to say things sagely in his deep baritone. Also, he gets in a last stand against the bad guys which lets him transform into beast mode which is a nice easter egg to the Transformers series. Later, there is an appearance by more iconic Decepticon bad guys, like Soundwave who always had the coolest design. And then there is Starscream voiced by Steve Buscemi and Buscemi’s nasal and nasty high-pitched voice works for the character. Later in a brawl with Megatron his voice box gets broken, so it sounds even more like the original, crackly version of the character.

The design of the Transformers has gone through a lot of versions since like 2007 film reinventions of their look and now in Transformers One it looks like the classic designs. There are a few bits incorporated from the ’07 revamp like Bumblebee’s face mask and hand laser knives. And there are some nifty intricates of the Transformer designs, like an insect Transformer that opens up its head and shows off its multiple eyes. The animation is spectacular with lots of epic looking shots that convey the scope of the battles. And the action is all very fast paced, culminating in a brawl between D-16 and Orion that seems like the inevitable tragic conclusion of their friendship. Transformers One has bits of robotic destiny that people may know is coming but is compelling to watch unfold.