When I first heard that Chris Hemsworth, Brain Tyree Henry and Keegan-Micheal Key were voicing Optimus Prime, Megatron and Bumblebee, respectively, in the upcoming animated film “Transformers One,” I was pretty skeptical of the direction the movie would go. A repetitive gag from Bumblebee calling himself “Badassatron” shown in the trailer all but convinced me that “Transformers One,” which was released on Sept. 20, was going to come and go with nothing really special about it.
After watching it, I was pleasantly surprised, and left the theater satisfied, thinking “Wait, it was actually good?!” Directed by Josh Cooley, who also worked on other successful movies like “Up” and “Inside Out,” “Transformers One” is an origin story for Optimus Prime and Megatron and the iconic feud between Autobots and Decepticons, taking viewers back to when they were lowly miner bots on the planet Cybertron. Prime was known as Orion Pax, a fearless and carefree rebel who won’t listen to orders, and Megatron as D-16, who is more rules-oriented and would rather keep his head down to avoid unnecessary trouble.
The pair spend their days in the city of Iacon mining underground for their fuel source, Energon, as it has stopped flowing freely on the planet. Only one relic lost to time has the potential to bring back the free flow, and Pax is set on finding it. The journey the characters go through radically shifts their perceptions of the society they live in and their place in it, and paves the foundation for what we see in the rest of the Transformers Franchise. The movie also explains how characters earn their iconic names and their motivations for allying with or opposing each other.
Visually, the movie looked amazing, with many colorful and rich shots. The scenes that take place on the surface of Cybertron are perhaps my favorite, the morphing metallic surface looking almost psychedelic. All of the character designs were recognizable as well. I could identify who the future Autobots and Decepticons were just by looking at them based on their colors and how menacing they looked. The city of Iacon was also really pleasing to the eye, with lots of flying Transformers, bright signs and shiny metallic buildings suspended high above the ground.
The comedy in this movie felt pretty well-placed and not too forced. Much of it was slapstick humor and rode the edge of being deemed too vulgar for a PG rating. Lots of Transformers getting punched in the face unexpectedly. References to other Transformers media such as the 1986 film and animated TV show “Transformers Prime.” A reference to the Gobots even made it in, to anyone who knows of that IP. I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but the “badassatron” joke from the trailer actually pays off later in the movie, and is a “so bad it’s good” joke that I ended up really liking.
I have a few complaints with the movie, mainly regarding the animation of the characters’ faces. They move too fluidly, almost human-like at times when they get punchedThe shock wave ripples through their metallic faces like it’s made of skin and flesh which bothers me because they are supposed to be made of metal. Bumblebee, simply known as B throughout the movie, was a little too obnoxious for my liking. Bumblebee is meant to be comic relief in this movie, but at multiple points it starts to get annoying and clashes with the more serious scenes. Of course, there’s also plot armor because it is an origin story, but it’s not an egregious offense.
This is a story about transformation (surprising, I know). It’s interesting to see how Pax and D-16 step into the roles they are known for in the Transformers mythos, one as an inspiring leader espousing free will and the other as a vengeful tyrant seeking to dominate his opponents. This movie isn’t groundbreaking cinema by any means, but it definitely is an enjoyable weekend flick you watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon — and that’s not a bad thing. Transformers movies have simple stories and are easy to get into without needing much prior knowledge to follow along. I strongly recommend giving this one a watch.
This article was first published in the October 9 print edition of the University Times.
