“Transformers One” is certainly not a perfect film. What it is, however, is a fun and exciting new chapter in a franchise that felt completely out of juice.
A prequel to the Transformers franchise has always been a talking point among fans. “Bumblebee” technically addressed this desire in 2018, but being a standalone film based on a side character, it didn’t really add anything to the franchise as a whole. “Transformers One” is more tied to the entire franchise; however, an animated film focused on the Transformers being actual characters instead of just armed robots meant to blow things up for two hours was not exactly what was expected. Opening to overwhelmingly positive reception from audiences and critics alike, it’s clear that “Transformers One” is something that so few Transformers films have been — refreshing.
It starts with the director, Josh Cooley. Coming off the success of his last film, “Toy Story 4,” Cooley took on the daunting challenge of reviving the dying Transformers franchise.
He does this by crafting backstories that give new meaning to stories already told. The legendary duo of Optimus Prime and Megatron is instead Orion Pax and D-16, two low-level miners on the robot planet Cybertron. Seeing both of their characters evolve in different ways toward the characters they are known to be is already a more enticing premise than any of the franchise’s most recent films.
The voice cast for this film is consistently excellent, filled with A-List talent from top to bottom. Voicing Orion Pax is Chris Hemsworth, who does a surprisingly good job in one of his first voice roles ever. Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson and Keegan-Michael Key make up the rest of the primary voice cast, all giving life to their characters in ways that elevate the enjoyment of an already-exciting film.
The animation is both beautiful and exhausting. Each frame is seeping with care in terms of details, but with so much going on at all times, it’s difficult to even know where to look, let alone try to understand the story.
The narrative does a lot of new things in relation to the rest of the Transformers franchise but nothing new compared to other animated films. It’s fairly engaging, but as a prequel, it doesn’t do nearly enough to overcome the fact that the entire audience already knows where the story has to end up. In fact, it feels as if the whole film is trying to lay just enough of a foundation to justify the huge finale that it’s so clearly building toward.
Fortunately, the finale is extremely satisfying. It shows flashes of previous Transformers films with sprawling and epic action, and it takes advantage of being animated by showing the action in innovative, engrossing ways.
Ultimately, “Transformers One” doesn’t do anything new or surprising, but compared to the low expectations set by the rest of the franchise, it’s a true breath of fresh air.
