Movie Review: "Transformers One"

This review may contain mild spoilers. Deep plot pertinent story elements will be avoided, but your mileage may vary when it comes to minor spoilers of other interesting elements. Proceed with consideration for what is best for your own enjoyment.

    I have consumed what I consider to be a fair amount of "Transformers" media, or at least enough for me to be able to get by without any confusion while watching "Transformers One". I've watched the first two seasons of the G1 (first generation) original animated series from the 1980s, "The Transformers: The Movie" from 1986, a chunk of "Beast Wars", a little bit of "Transformers Armada", a little bit of "Robots In Disguise", two of Michael Bay's movies, the "Bumblebee" movie, and probably other things in bits and pieces somewhere. I'm sure to somebody who has consumed very little "Transformers", this sounds like a lot, but to anybody who's an actual "Transformers"-head, this sounds like absolutely nothing. My whole life, I've been surrounded by people who live and breathe "Transformers" with their entire being and soul--their entire "spark", if you will--and anything I might have to say about any piece of "Transformers" media will sound like babbling baby nonsense by comparison. Meanwhile, these other people in my life should be writing college dissertations and story dissection videos on the over-arching plot of each piece of media, what film borrowed what from which TV show or comic, etc. My knowledge pales in comparison to that of others.

    That having been said, I rather liked what I saw in "Transformers One".

    Up until today, I had seen nothing but high praise for the movie, with people all over my social media timelines saying that it's the best "Transformers" movie that has ever been made. It's only been today, after walking away from the movie and talking with friends, that I found that they and other people were saying they were turned off by the trailer and came away surprised that they liked it as much as they did because they didn't think the trailers made it look good at all, and even then, it was just just good, not the best.

    So as someone who likes "Transformers" perfectly fine, I also liked this movie perfectly fine. It was totally inoffensive in any way, and I genuinely thought it was plenty fun enough with good character development. I am certain that as "Transformers" lore has continued to establish itself over decades, there are plenty of adaptations of shows and comics that I have not watched or read that would have clued me into some of the things this movie pulls from more. But I already knew plenty enough to see some of the cuts they were making. I was aware of most all of the major named characters just fine, even understanding that characters names would change depending on whether or not they could transform, or if someone had found or was in possession of the Matrix of Leadership. So for the majority of the movie, the character that looks like Optimus Prime is not in fact called Optimus Prime; he's going by his pre-Prime name of Orion Pax. As such, you can see that this is an origin story, depicting a period of time where Orion Pax and D-16 (later known as Megatron) were at one time friends with the same goals before learning that they'd been lied to about truths of their life on Cybertron all their lives and ultimately choosing two totally separate paths in response to gaining that knowledge. They also gain the ability to transform in this movie, making it a fairly good origin story and jumping-on point for anybody who is an absolute "Transformers" beginner.

    Although just about everyone is largely an on-screen actor in this film, I was actually mostly pretty impressed with how well they handled themselves in voice-over roles. Anyone who talks to voice actors regularly knows that on-screen acting and voice acting are often wildly different practices that require practicing with different sets of acting muscles. There are a lot of animated films where it's obvious the super-famous on-screen actors they hired aren't used to acting solely with their voice with no sets or other people to play off of. But I dunno, I actually found Chris Hemsworth to be a pretty competent Orion Pax. His native Australian accent disappears, and there are moments where I actually do hear him pulling off an okay young Peter Cullen sound-alike. Steve Buscemi as Starscream is an absolutely inspired casting decision. I can't imagine picking a better actor to portray this slimy backstabber with delusions of grandeur. For that reason, it's almost disappointing how under-utilized Buscemi is. They could have gone in so much harder.

    It's pretty clear how high up the fan rankings Bumblebee has climbed over the years. Keegan Michael-Key is great as B-127, just an incredibly happy and spunky dude who's just glad to be included in anything. If you're at all familiar with his former work on the Comedy Central show "Key & Peele", you may have heard a direct reference to one of Keegan's more popular sketches in B's fake robot friend that he has named "A-A-Tron" (a reference to a sketch where Keegan plays a school teacher who mispronounces the extremely simple names of his students, such as Aaron, whom he calls "A-A-ron").

    I'm more than certain there are plenty of deep cut references to be found throughout the movie. There were lots of crowd shots at points where I was certain I should have recognized some bots that largely went unnamed with no attention placed on them. Arcee, for example, was very easy to spot a couple of times and even had a couple of speaking lines. At one point Scarlett Johansson's character Evita has a line that goes something like, "You neither have the touch nor the power," a very direct reference to one of the most famous songs off of the original 1986 "The Transformers: The Movie" soundtrack, Stan Bush's "The Touch". Anybody in way deeper than me could have probably pointed out a million other things the film was referencing. I'm sure it must be eye candy to people with more than just a passing interest in the franchise. It's not hard to pick out must-have one-liner references to older material like, "More than meets the eye," or "Until all are one," and stuff like that. If you're an ultimate beginner, this stuff should stick out pretty easily.

    The animation is great. Really bright and colorful. Despite these characters being robots, they're also fully fleshed-out characters that feel like people you should care about, making the robot city of IACON seem like a real, lived-in place, and the animation reflects the working conditions of the people who live there as well. I wasn't much paying attention to the musical score, but it certainly did everything it needed to do. A friend of mine who was part of our group seeing the movie together, however, did mention really liking the soundtrack, thanks in large part to famous composer Brian Tyler. Aside from the verbal reference to "The Touch", there really were few other musical references to things a "Transformers" fan might jump out of their seat for, though I did feel pretty strongly that the end credits song ("If I Fall" with Quavo and Ty Dolla $ign) probably deliberately used just the first three notes of the original G1 "Transformers" theme (specifically the three notes sung in the word "Transformers" before moving onto the words, "More than meets the eye").

    I genuinely thought it was a well-written character piece. These characters felt likable and believable. D-16's heel turn into becoming Megatron honestly makes sense. You can see how it is he feels betrayed by leaders taking advantage him and then slowly becoming a guy who refuses to be taken advantage of by any leaders ever again. God, I would have loved to have spent more time with Soundwave, though. A friend asked where the hell Grimlock was, though we all agreed it was probably pretty reasonable that the dinosaur robot wasn't noticeably visible during a time before traveling to Earth and finding dinosaurs.

    Prior to seeing this movie tonight, my husband and I had gone to see the movie "Twisters" in 4DX, which was an incredible experience. Though actually, during the trailers for "Twisters", the trailer for "Transformers One" came up, and that 4DX trailer was pretty much the most insane trailer experience I've ever had in my life. It has me genuinely wondering how crazy the 4DX experience is for the movie as a whole. I would almost be willing to go back and watch this again in 4DX just to see if those seats end up launching me out of my chair, like I kind of feared I would just during the trailer alone.

    I think it's entirely possible you might like this movie even if you don't know a lot about "Transformers" ahead of time. There's a lot of backstory about a war on this alien planet and a bunch of leaders known as the Primes, with terminology that I suppose I could see taking a second for newcomers to get used to if you've never heard it before, but otherwise it's a pretty identifiable story of a government that has been lying to its citizens about the nature of who they are and what has been done to them, forcing them into labor, without any of those people knowing that they've been lied to and are actually capable of so much more than they know. And to that extent, a feeling of hope permeates throughout the film. To that end, "Transformers One" is not just a cool robot movie where the robots can turn into cool vehicles and weapons and get into cool-looking fights with each other, but also there is a sense of humanity and purpose in the characters, even despite the fact that they're all made of solid metal. And that's a testament the excellent writing, acting, animation, and score. On the whole, I believe that "Transformers One" succeeds and is easy for fans and newbies alike to enjoy.

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