‘It’s time to show that we are more than meets the eye...’
One of the things that I love about cinema is its ability to deliver a film out of nowhere that is somehow brilliant despite the fact that nothing about it on paper suggests that it should be so. Transformers One, the eighth film in the long-running franchise and the second animated entry after the much beloved The Transformers: The Movie in 1986, is a prequel to the Michael Bay live action efforts of the mid-2000s. ‘A prequel to the Michael Bay live actions efforts’ – it’s not a sentence that inspires confidence is it? And yet, this might just be the most purely enjoyable film in the entire franchise…
Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) are lowly mining robots on the planet of Cybertron who do not posses the ability to transform. When their leader, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), announces a huge race with a big prize available to the winner, Pax, the more reckless of our hapless pair, tricks D-16 into entering, despite his misgivings. After narrowly losing out on the finish line, the two Autobots are summoned for an audience with Sentinel Prime who tells them he is delighted with their efforts before unceremoniously dumping them into robot prison where they meet B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key), a well-meaning, but clearly mentally unwell garbage compacter. The three of them, along with Pax and D-16’s scorned co-worker Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson), uncover a vast conspiracy theory that confirms that everything they have been told about life on Cybertron is a lie.
While that plot description may seem convoluted, director Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) keeps things moving with some expertly handled exposition that even small children will understand. Transformers One genuinely, and I don’t say this lightly, evokes classic adventure films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars in its assured plotting and character development. The absence of any human characters is rendered irrelevant by the quality of characterisation inherent in Eric Pearson’s excellent script. I believed in these characters, but crucially, I cared about them too. It is pretty clear from the off who is Optimus Prime and who is Megatron and we know that a rift is coming – when their conflict finally comes to a head it is genuinely affecting.
Transformers One is the most surprising film of 2024 for me. Funny, frantic and full of heart, I would highly recommend Cooley’s movie to anyone with even a passing interest in the Transformers franchise. You won’t be disappointed.
