Interesting things are happening in the world of the Transformers at the moment. There’s the thrilling ongoing comic-book series from Daniel Warren Johnson, and the promise of an upcoming project by acclaimed anime studio Trigger. New big-screen project Transformers One, meanwhile, looks to the past — three billion years in the past, to be exact — with something of a reworked origin story. This means taking things back to Cybertron entirely: there’s not a human in sight throughout Josh Cooley’s CG-animated film.
Even without earthlings to steer the emotional arc of this tale, there are some fun ideas driving Transformers One, specifically on the expansion on Cybertron and the planet’s social structure, where the groundwork for a revolution among working-class robots is building. Optimus Prime is still the main character, but here he’s ‘Orion Pax’: a plucky, upstart hustler, voiced with roguish charm by Chris Hemsworth. (We are not yet at the Peter Cullen-voiced, gravitas-heavy phase of the character.)
The glossy realism clashes with the intentionally blocky, toyetic
character designs.
Pax works the mines of Cybertron, dreaming of something bigger for himself, while looking out for his friend and fellow miner D-16. It’s no great secret who D-16 turns out to be — especially given that Brian Tyree Henry voices him with a simmering undercurrent of rage — but the new origin point is funny. While the dialogue is sometimes too cute about its references (“You don’t have the touch, or the power”), the broader ideas are interesting.
While the film’s plot rails against the glossy-surfaced lie of capitalism (or at least the alien-robot equivalent), its own surface leaves a lot to be desired. At a time when many CG-animated films are boldly experimenting, the odd mix of natural lighting and realistic textures here feels uncanny more often than not. The glossy realism clashes with the intentionally blocky, toyetic character designs.
At least there’s often a solid sense of comic timing, with Cooley — whose last film was Toy Story 4 — delivering some effective humour. And even if its aesthetic decisions hold it back from greatness, this is a valiant effort to make something new out of Transformers lore: a parable about class warfare, made palatable for kids.
