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Transformers One Movie Review

Transformers One is a 2024 animated science fiction action film directed by Josh Cooley and starring Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry. It’s a surprisingly strong movie.

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“I’m done saving you“

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It tells the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, better known as sworn enemies, but who once were friends bonded like brothers who changed the fate of Cybertron forever. First off, out of all Transformers media I’ve only watched the ‘Bumblebee’ movie so far. I loved that one, but I have yet to see the original show. I am saying this because being acquainted with at least some basic lore of this franchise is crucial in order to understand this movie that isn’t really welcoming to new fans. At times I was pretty much lost as the lore and world building are intricately detailed and quite extensive for better and for worse.

With that being said, I still ended up enjoying this experience quite a bit. In fact, watching these robots transform into cars and fight each other evoked a young boy in me as the franchise has that boyish charm to it that is difficult not to appreciate. It’s an action flick for sure, but it also doesn’t forget to include a meaningful story and solid characterization to boot, which is why I was never bored, and in fact, I would say that the movie was a tad rushed, especially in Megatron’s turn to dark side, which was bit abrupt in my book.

So, this is basically an origin story. We’ve seen stories like this before – of a friendship turned into an antagonistic relationship. And most of the plot beats are predictable for sure. But the execution is so fantastic that ultimately that familiarity of the material did not matter. The friendship should have been even better developed, but for the most part Optimus Prime and Megatron got a quality, moving arc that was quite memorable and epic. The ending sees the two become their signature versions and the results were truly spectacular.

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Sentinel Prime was a terrific villain of the story and quite a competent one at that. Elita is a somewhat standard female friend that is too perfect while B was your typical annoying sidekick, but many of his one-liners did make me laugh, so I liked him overall. The humor is surprisingly good in the second half, though in the first half it can be a bit too childish. The main two characters got the most amount of screen time, so that negatively impacted the development of other characters, which were reduced to archetypes for the most part.

Transformers One has a very pretty art style inspired by Art Deco, especially in the Cybertron architecture. The robots themselves are CGI as expected and they looked polished and detailed, but more could have been done to make the transformation scenes more of a spectacle. The sound and score are both very strong and the directing from Josh Cooley is surprisingly competent for a guy who made ‘Toy Story 4’.

The lore was a bit incomprehensible, but intriguing nonetheless. The world building is staggeringly detailed and there is no doubt that this is a very competent origin story that answers some important questions about this world and its characters. I just wished that the beginning was easier to understand for casual and/or new fans. The dialogue can be quite cheesy and typical in that inspirational sort of way, but the humorous touches worked and the film was ultimately not all that childish in my opinion as the villains were suitably menacing and the action quite intense. The movie’s world and characters are just cool for anybody who is a boy at heart.

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