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Review: Transformers One

You've got the touch...

Posted by: Matthew Ardill • September 15, 2024 @ 1:07pm

Filed under: Reviews

I am a Generation One Transformers child. I grew up riding my BMX to the store using my paper route money and allowance to buy Transformers action figures (this is back when child labour was only semi-frowned upon and letting kids go door to door at 5 AM multiple days a week was okay). Look, the 80s were weird, but it doesn't change the fact I was the late Gen X target of the marketing campaign that was the Transformers.

There have been multiple movies over the years. Of course, there's 1986's The Transformers: The Movie, a wild animated movie targeted right at my 12-year-old brain, which opened with the genocide of Cybertron and was followed by a battle set to the light metal power anthem "The Touch" where we see Megatron straight up murder Optimus and then Starscream do his leader dirty. This is 21 minutes into a CHILDREN'S MOVIE! Like I said, the 80s were weird.

Did I mention that aside from featuring iconic voice actors Peter Cullen (Optimus Prime) and Frank Welker (Megatron), it also included Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy (who would reprise his role of Galvatron years later), Eric Idle, Judd Nelson, and Robert Stack? I meant it when I said the 80s were weird.

After a few decades of television trying to recapture this magic, we got the first batch of live-action movies produced by Steven Spielberg, the steward of our childhood, and we had hope. Then Micheal Bay sunk his fangs into the series as director, and what he produced was a bunch of increasingly incomprehensible films featuring misogyny, racist tropes, and LITERAL truck balls. The incomprehensible transformations could be forgiven since it brought back Cullen and Welker, but it came out of the gate problematic and nonsensical, and over the course of a series of explosionporn films had no real focus except transforming Optimus Prime into a bad guy. They are all that is wrong with cinema.

Then, miraculously, Hasbro realized maybe films with extended upskirt shots and giant robot testicles were not for kids, and so we got 2018's Bumblebee followed by 2023's Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, two genuinely fun films that captured the spirit of the original while updating them to a 21st century film structure. Bonus, we even got a G.I. Joe tie-in at the end of Rise of the Beasts, combining my two childhood income sinks.

So, when I heard about Transformers One, I was nervous, but had a bit of hope, especially after the 2023 release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, another property based on a late Gen X hit that seemed to figure out they should not trust Bay as far as they can be thrown by one of his on set explosions. I was a little disappointed in seeing the voice cast of Transformers One; they're all great stars in their own right, but having voice actor friends, I'm not a fan of the stunt casting trend in animated movies (that said, the original Transformers had Orson Welles typecast as an egotistical megalomaniac devouring planets... so... it's kind of tradition with this franchise).

Set before the war on Cybertron, the younger transformers have less gravitas with a friendlier Chris Hemsworth (Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime) and Brian Tyree Henry (D-16 aka Megatron), which make sense and doesn't remove you from the film if you're an old school fan, while they are familiar voices to kids. Scarlett Johansson got to actually flex more muscles from an acting perspective as Elita-1 (aka Elita One from The Transformers: The Movie in 1986), delivering a great performance, and Keegan-Micheal Key brought his impressive improv chops to bear as B-127 (aka Bumblebee). You'll see a trend with many of these characters: they have different names because this is from BEFORE they were transformers. (Plus you hear Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and John Hamm, which honestly in my mind is cooler than Orson Welles.)

There has been very little on camera from before the war for Cybertron; we've seen glimpses of the war in cartoons and film, but never the day-to-day life of the pre-war world. In this film, we get a huge amount of world building and background, which doesn't contradict the TV shows. One of the most impressive parts of this is you could easily flash forward and have this tie into either the Gen 1 cartoons or the Bumblebee universe (not the Bay-verse because it's just so weird and contradictory in its lore it doesn't work connecting to any existing media). The bonus is that since it's an animated feature, it serves as a prelude and allows the story to take place on an incredibly sprawling fantastical world in a way you wouldn't get with a live-action movie. We also get the return of the Quintisons, the five-faced villains of the Gen 1 cartoons (and the original creators of the transformers, but that's unclear if that's the case with this world).

Look, I left the cinema having drunk a huge draft of "memberberry juice". I was excited, I wanted more, and I loved every action-filled moment, but the important thing is so did the kids watching it. They laughed at the jokes and didn't yawn at the jokes there for the parents. There was heart, there was spirit, and I genuinely felt this film gave motivations and new life to the characters I've known for 40 years of my life. They felt more human, and I actually developed a level of sympathy for Megatron, a cartoonish villain who only seemed to care about being evil for evil's sake. This doesn't mitigate what he comes to do, but it contextualizes it, which left me mind blown.

The film is in cinemas now in Canada and opens globally September 20. If you grew up loving the Transformers, do yourself a favour and go see this film. If you have kids, bring them, as it's genuinely fun for the whole family. And if you liked the Michael Bay films... well, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do for you.