Time is a flat circle. Ok, referencing a great R rated TV series to talk about Transformers was dumb, I get that. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true. In order for Transformers to get good again, of course we had to go back to the roots: the animated, toy based roots. Thankfully, Josh Cooley has the touch to get that done, and deliver the first great Transformers movie since they appeared on the big screen in 2007.
Transformers One takes us back to early Cybertron, where Optimus Prime and Megatron didn’t exist…yet. The planet is run by Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), who’s searching for the macguffin of leadership (sorry matrix of leadership, but you get the idea) to help all the bots get their sparks back so they can transform. In the meantime, bots like D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) and Omni Pax (Chris Hemsworth) are sparkless, mining for Energon to power the planet for the time being. Pax desires a way out of the mines to help the Primes, and low key tries his best to make it to the surface to help Sentinel Prime and Cybertron, picking friends like B-127 (Keegan Michael Key) and Alita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) to aid him in those efforts/dreams.
Years of Michael Bay, Shia Laboeuf, icky female gaze, even ickier politics, and Mark Wahlberg soured audiences to more live action Transformer films. Ergo, Director Josh Cooley and his writers bring it back to what worked for the 80s kids: animation. That simple transformation puts this story back with the kids, where it belongs. Transformers One’s Omni Pax and D-16 are smaller robots with big dreams learning lessons from the bigger robots around them like Sentinel Prime. The dialogue is like a bunch of 10-12 years olds, mocking each other and being silly on an adventure together. The animation choice also frees up Cooley’s creativity, crafting colorful locations and fight sequences that feel just above a Saturday morning cartoon, but also can maybe be a little more violent than a live action film, where you’d have to deal with blood and real world consequences. It’s amazing how one small switch can lead to so many better results, but that’s exactly what an Animated Transformers film can do, unburdened by the weird, detracting choices of Transformer live action movie history.
The big reason Transformers One works so well though it’s how we somehow ended up in doppelganger Hasbro storytelling. The last 17 years of Transformers movies have opted to put adults into a movie they dumb down for mass appeal. Transformers One, shockingly, takes a fun kids adventure and makes it way deeper than anyone expected. From the first 10 minutes, adults will sus out the plot of the adventure story, and probably what happened to the other Primes. The writers know this too, and essentially end the “main” story about an hour into the film. Forgive the pun, but after that conclusion, the story transforms in such a way that it discusses issues of oppression, revolution, power, and the consequences of desiring power above all else, but in a way that kids can understand. For a Transformers film, this is a remarkable storytelling achievement, considering Revenge of the Fallen was one of the worst movies ever made, because it was essentially scriptless. Turns out, if you care about the audience and being creative, even a dumb movie like Transformers One can become something worth watching.
So way to go Hasbro. You’ve got kids and adults back onboard the toy train. What are you gonna do next, now with expectations? Maybe a musical to appeal to women more? What toy line do you have to sell next? I don’t know what’s coming, but for the first time in a long time, I say, bring on more Transformers, and let’s see if we can keep the Energon flowing!