transformers one
“My name is Optimus Prime, and I send this message to any surviving Autobots taking refuge among the stars. We are here. We are waiting.”
During the leadup to Transformers One, when its trailers were coming out and everything, I, like many others, was a bit skeptical. It was cool to see an animated Transformers film coming out, the first since the 80s, but one thing from the trailers seriously rubbed me the wrong way: the casting of Chris Hemsworth. I guess I was just used to hearing Peter Cullen since he had been Optimus for so many decades, but coming off the back of the Mario movie and big film studios’ obsession with casting hot celebrities instead of actual seasoned voice actors, I was a little miffed another Marvel Chris was being cast as an iconic 80s character with a similarly iconic and pre-established voice. Plus, he's Australian, and his American accent is just not quite there yet.
What I failed to understand at the time is that this is not a movie about Optimus Prime- it's a movie about Orion Pax, a completely separate character that has obstacles to overcome and lessons to learn before he can evolve into the fearless Autobot leader with a voice of steel. This evolution and character growth is Transformers One’s undisputed strong suit.
The downfall of a good man and the separation of two friends into enemies is a great approach for this prequel story and is executed in a satisfying and exciting way. The one-on-one climactic fight between Optimus and Megatron was another major highlight thanks to quick-paced and diverse action, and any Transformers fan would pump their first in the air upon seeing little references, Easter eggs and small steps towards more accurate character portrayals, like Starsceam's voice, Optimus’s mask and the little jump-and-shoot he does in reference to his first movie. I'm not the biggest Transformers fan in the world, so I don't know if any of this movie got the lore “right” or how much of this is new, but boy, there certainly are a lot of “lore words” being thrown into the conversation. This movie will sound like absolute gibberish to you if you're not in the loop, which might be a reason it didn't do well at the box office.
D-16’s turn to the side of evil isn't completely smooth or really all that slow burn, but it’s still extremely satisfying to see. You understand what he’s saying and why he'd take charge of a situation he felt burned in like that. The transformation into Megatron is elevated to new heights, however, with the aid of Brian Tyree Henry’s amazing voice performance. Unlike Hemsworth, this IS a performance I’d consider voice-over-worthy, and Henry is quickly becoming a new favorite of mine. Nobody else in the movie even comes close to him- wrapping back around to the introduction, Hemsworth turned out to be fine, but wouldn't have been my first or even tenth pick, and unfortunately, and this is more of a character critique, Bumblebee in this movie is incredibly grating. I like Keegan Michael Key enough, but the Autobot himself has many more annoying moments than funny.
The animation is pretty good here, as are the locations, with a bunch of cool and sleek-looking buildings, ships, inhabitants and other unique locales. It’s a fairly different art style for these characters, so I can understand it being jarring at first, but the animation and art direction is totally fine for me. The one element that threw me off, though, were the faces. For some reason, every character’s face in this movie looks like early amateurish CGI from the 90s that not only clashes terribly with the rest of their body, but also fails to make the proper expressions necessary for an animated movie. It’s nowhere near immersion-breaking, but it is strange to me that Transformers One looks like a 2024 movie 90% of the time, but there’s one element that looks like outdated computer generated mush.
The sound design is also not up to the standard of previous Transformers movies. The clinking and clanking of the metal smashing into each other and the creative implementations of the classic transformation sound were my favorite parts of the Michael Bay “films”, but Transformers One fails to live up to that impossible standard. However, the most noticeable audio blunder was the lack of a really good score. Composed music barely exists in this movie, as there are many scenes that just don’t have any music playing in them and are dead silent except for the sound effects and dialogue. The Autobots running from an ice avalanche on the train as it spirals into the surface of the planet is an example of a scene that, without a score, felt like something was missing. Very strange.
I had a decent amount of fun with Transformers One, and would definitely recommend it to the die-hard, walking Wikipedia databases of Transformers fans that definitely exist but have already seen this movie. It’s satisfying to see the emergence of two iconic characters that evolved from seemingly humble backgrounds, and even more satisfying to see them duke it out both physically and by nature of their complex values. However, its daunting prerequisites expected from the viewer and few annoying pitfalls prevent me from recommending this movie to everyone. It is a remarkable feat of cinema, though, every time an even remotely passable Transformers movie releases. An acceptable Transformers film in the wake of what was released before it is a miracle and a result of stars aligning, so we should take what we get.
