Director – Josh Cooley – 2023 – US – Cert. PG – 104m
***
The origin story of the hero and villain of the Transformers in a long-distant past on their home planet – animated prequel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 11th
In a city deep in the bowels of his planet, one of its Transformer residents, Orion Pax (voice: Chris Hemsworth), obsessed with learning all he can about the history of his people, breaches the security of an historical archive only to be chased by guards who find him as he starts reading. Like many others, Orion is a mining bot, and as such lacks the ability to transform that is possessed only by true Transformers. Trying to do the right thing even when it’s against regulations, he is often getting into trouble on his mining shift. His immediate superior Elita-1 (voice: Scarlett Johansson) consistently covers for him.
That doesn’t stop Orion Pax from breaking with tradition and getting himself and his friend D-16 (voice: Brian Tyree Henry) to participate in a Transformers race through the city, for participation in which, benevolent ruler Sentinel (voice: Jon Hamm) promises to reward them – although as it turns out, they are almost immediately sent to a deep level waste dump for stepping out of line. Here they meet the delusional B-127 (voice: Keegan-Michael Key) who has been down there on his own far too long and fabricates fellow bots out of junk for companionship.
When Orion stumbles upon a distress signal from the surface detailing the whereabouts of a long forgotten hero from the bot civilization’s past, he and D-16 hitch a ride on a train up to the surface to rescue said hero. Here they will witness amazing robotic animal wildlife, come under attack from unfriendly alien spaceships, and discover that the benevolent Sentinel is not quite so benevolent after all.
It turns out – SPOILER ALERT – that the mining bots are in fact true Transformers who have had their medallions removed to keep them under Sentinel’s thumb. The medallions are what gives them the power to transform. This is a nice idea and effectively realised; for the finale, they are given their medallions back and start to transform. But Orion Pax and his friend D-16 fall out. Badly.
The world in which all this takes place is nicely visualised and designed, with a grittiness befitting a subterranean mining economy. In this regard, the film is a constant rush of arresting detail, and it’s a place you’re happy to spend a reasonably compact 104 minutes in. Unlike the live action films, because this takes place on the Transformers’ home world, there are no human characters, only robots, and, as such, the decision to make the film in animation rather than live action proves a smart move.
As a standalone science fiction entry about a civilization rediscovering itself and throwing off the chains of an oppressor, it’s pretty impressive. At this point, I should confess myself not to be a Transformers fan. I am fully aware that the franchise is phenomenally popular, at least in terms of box office sales, and generates considerable revenue, but it’s never really done it for me (although, I was very impressed by the sixth film in the franchise, Bumblebee, Travis Knight, 2018).
And that’s the problem Transformers One has for anyone who is not a die-hard fan of the franchise. If only you could remove the Transformers characters from it, and turn them into something else, you could have a great little movie. If you’re a fan, you’ll probably feel quite differently, and certainly, as the Transformers movies go, it’s one of the better ones. What it needs to do, as both Bumblebee and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Jeff Rowe, Kyles Spears, 2022) did, is to transcend the limitations of its franchise, making it attractive to those outside its immediate fan base – but that, alas, is something it never quite manages.
Transformers One is out in cinemas in the UK on Friday, October 11th.
Trailer:
Trailer 2: