To celebrate the Transformers‘ 40th anniversary, Hasbro looks like it is starting another film franchise with Transformers One. It’s a film that tells another version of the origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron and how the civil war between the Autobots and Decepticons on Cybertron started. Now, I know many of those words make zero sense, but these are vital parts of the canon of Transformers in many different versions. In this one, they are making a version of the film series that started all the way back in 2007 with Michael Bay’s Transformers. We meet two best friends, Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), two energon miner bots living in the underground city of Cybertron. The more down-to-earth and pragmatic D-16 balances the optimistic and energetic Orion. Orion wants to know more about the history of the Primes, as they can’t transform to be seen as worthy of those who can help fight the war against the Quintessons. Both look up to the last standing Prime, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) and end up backfiring when they enter a big celebratory race to help the morale of all the bots who do the labor for the military fighting the war. After meeting B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key) and later on joined by hard-nosed Elita (Scarlett Johansson), they all end up on the surface learning more than they bargained for, which causes the two friends Orion and D-16 to divide into the two enemies we’ve known over the decades – Optimus Prime and Megatron.
Now, back when they were first coming out, I was more accepting of the Bay-directed live-action Transformers, but over time, as they got worse and the messy look of the characters along with the very violent nature of the films, I’ve soured on them. For many, the 1986 animated film is the best theatrical version of the characters to date. Now, this film chooses to use a visual aesthetic that is close to the classic design style of the 80s era. The film uses the trappings of nostalgia to tell a good story of these two friends and how learning the truth put them on such opposing paths that they are willing to kill each other over it and their vision of the future of their world. Chris Hemsworth does well as Orion Pax throughout this movie, and while he’s going to feel familiar with his Thor role with a touch of naivete to his outlook. Brian Tyree Henry now gets to do a lot with his performance as his friend; that’s nice and reasonable, but when that change happens, you can just hear his growing hatred as D-16 becomes Megatron. Visually, it’s also cool as they show these characters first getting to transform and then learning to change literally on screen. The colors are bright, and the characters have easter eggs to the many different interpretations of these characters over the years. I enjoyed how they chose to make everything look different, even if it differs from the versions I know. Scarlett Johansson does pretty well here, even if I think they have never really done much with Elita over the years. Although Keegan-Michael Key enjoyed voicing Bumblebee while he was there as the funny sidekick, he gets some great action scenes. I was never a fan of the silent Bumblebee, and this has more of the feeling of classic Prime’s little buddy version from the old cartoon.
I enjoyed this movie a lot, and the audience I saw it with seemed to enjoy it very much. The people I knew there who don’t have a lot of history with all this liked it a lot, too. As much as I think Bumblebee and Rise of the Beasts are steps in the right direction for live-action movies, they are better than the Bay ones. Transformers One shows how the franchise is served best in the cinema as animated feature films. Everything is cleaner and has better stories that feel made for a general audience of fans and newcomers.
Score: B
