Conventional wisdom tends to suggest that origin stories are rarely the best ways to inject energy into familiar intellectual properties. Yet the newly released “Transformers One” from director Josh Cooley, which depicts the early relationship between Optimus Prime and Megatron manages to achieve the unthinkable by doing just that. On-screen, we’ve been used to live-action adaptations of the “Transformers” merging their robotic thrills with human characters and stories, but here a chance from live-action to purely animated turns these human-like robots into emotionally sincere characters with more than enough power to hold down a story of their own. Come for the ultimate sequences of robots engaging in large-scale battles with all the special effects included but stay for a surprisingly tender and sincere emotional tale with more philosophical roots than you might expect.
There is an incredible lack of guile in the open decision to consider this world of the “Transformers” as one to which audiences have little context. Whether you approach the film new to the lore of “Transformers” or well-versed in their tales, the quickly developing crises seem to ask audiences to suspend their disbelief and consider this tale as if it is a newly spun one. It’s a good idea, that delivers the story against backdrop of a friends-to-enemies journey for the titans when they were just two nobodies Orion Pax and D-16 (voiced by Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry) who work as miners on Cybertron. On this robot planet, society is divided into two classes: the upper class, those with transformation cogs and the lower class, those without cogs who function like slaves, their only function being mining for fuel to keep all robots alive. Orion is convinced that he and his non-transformative peers are worth more than others think and when a string of unlucky and then lucky coincidences find the pair, and two additional friends, at the centre of a secret of their universe “Transformers One” sharply bends into a metaphorical rendering of class warfare and social allegory that turns this tale of robots into something achingly powerful.
Animation seems to be the perfect mode for this story. Rather than spending much time contextualising this world, its trio of writers (Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari and Eric Pearson) were efficient at building the stakes of yearning that set up the initial friendship between the two robots, and the schism central to their ultimate division. The visual imagery here is impressive and expertly suggests meaningfully tactile images that emblazon across the screen. As each plot-point develops into revelation after revelation, “Transformers One” is impressively jockeying its plot-twists with masterful formal elements leading up to a series of climactic fights in the final few moments that retain all the thrills one would expect from the franchise.
One unceasing thrill of the film is its excellent ensemble cast, anchored by Tyree Henry’s performance as D-16/Megatron. The tight-plotting of the film’s final act, which depends on the inevitable shift of allegiances owes much to Henry who has emerged as one of the best live-action and voice-performers of the last decade. By the time the climactic battles come after a series of impressive twists, “Transformers One” will have you incredulously realising that this science-fiction tale of robot life is doing superlative work of provoking genuine emotional response from its robot-characters. And more than anything, it’s a sign of how earnest commitment to one’s story is central for emotional acuity.
And it’s here that “Transformers One” has been lingering in my mind more than I would have anticipated. There’s a potential debate as to who the film might be targeting most when its quasi-religious themes of fall-gods, tyrannical rulers and rampant injustice feel more philosophically astute than so many live-action films I’ve seen this year. The cashier at the cinema was quick to warn me that this was a “cartoon movie” when I purchased my ticket, and the smattering of parents with small children in the cinema seemed as good as any evidence that this will be an easy pic for parents to young children. But this clear-eyed assessment of the dynamics of fighting for good against evil is sharper than it might appear. “Transformers One” has much to offer for adults, too.
“Transformers One is playing in cinemas