Transformers One: Film Review
After seven live-action films, the Transformers franchise goes in a refreshing new direction with the animated prequel Transformers One.
Directed by Toy Story 4’s Josh Cooley, this instalment explores the origins of the Transformers on their home planet Cybertron and reveals why they ended up divided into the Autobots and Decepticons. It revolves around a best friends-to-sworn enemies storyline between Orion Pax/Optimus Prime (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and D-16/Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry).
In this prequel, they are best friends and miners in Iacon City working to dig up the planet’s fuel Energon. All of the miners are missing their transformation cogs, meaning they can’t change form. When they discover an old distress message from a Prime, the first of the Transformers race, Orion Pax, D-16 and fellow miners Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and B-127/Bumblebee (Keegan-Michael Key) go on a mission to the surface to find the Matrix of Leadership, a powerful ancient artefact.
The bar isn’t particularly high but this is one of the better Transformers films (Bumblebee is the best though). Taking the animated route was the right call – the Transformers franchise feels well suited to that medium and it visually sets itself apart from the live-action films. It is also the first without human characters and this allows the Transformers to shine and have more personality, humour and emotion.
This is geared towards younger audiences more than the live-actions but it will still appeal to adult fans because of the way it expands the mythology, links up to the first Transformers film and turns Orion Pax and D-16 into Optimus Prime and Megatron. It’s really cool seeing how they get their transforming power and watching them try it out for the first time. The final act where the friends truly turn against each other is also exciting, although I didn’t think D-16’s switch to Megatron was totally earned.
Henry deserves praise for charting D-16’s trajectory through his voice. He does not start out as the villain – he is a naive worker bee whose voice becomes gradually filled with more and more anger, hurt and resentment after a betrayal. He expertly tracks that shift from the two polar opposite sides of his character. I also want to give a shout-out to Hemsworth for doing a solid job as the precursor to legendary Optimus Prime voice actor Peter Cullen and Key for being hilarious as the lonely chatterbox B-127.
While the story of Orion Pax and D-16 is well thought out and interesting, I could not engage with the adventure storyline. It didn’t feel as fun as it should be and I found it hard to follow the action sequences.
Transformers One is marginally better than most of the live-action films but it is still a mixed bag, which seems to be the calling card for the franchise.
In cinemas from Friday 11th October