Transformers One
Review: The newest Transformers film returned to the series’ roots of animation and came out just a couple of months ago in September. This film was stellar and presents a great origin story for many characters, focusing mainly on Megatron & Optimus Prime. We get to see more of Cybertron (the Transformers’ home planet) which is something that always intrigued me, but was rarely touched in the live action films. Overall I’m a pretty novice fan of the franchise, but I’d love to hear the thoughts of someone who really is passionate about it. I considered putting this as my high, but wanted to go in another direction so here I’m going to touch on the voice cast. First I want to give all the praise to Brian Tyree Henry, who I believe is one of the most underrated working actors, and provided the voice of Megatron/D-16. He did a great job with the character transformation (no pun intended) from the young, naive D-16 to the maniacal, cynical, & tyrannical Megatron. Although we see a gradual frustration growing in the character, there was a single snap where I’d say the character really changed. The other actors who did a great job were Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion, Steve Buscemi as Starscream, & Keegan-Michael Key as Bumblebee, who had me cracking up the whole film. I especially enjoyed the joke at the end of the movie “This is the best day of my life! I get to work for the government!” and his relationship with the three friends he built in the mines (and I loved the A-A-Tron reference). Now Chris Hemsworth. Hm. Overall I think he did a decent job as Orion Pax/Optimus Prime. But there were times, specifically during the character’s voice over, that it just sounded like Chris Hemsworth doing an Optimus Prime impression but trying to not make it apparent that’s what he was doing. I think it was too middling when they should’ve either leaned into the Optimus Prime voice or Chris Hemsworth’s regular voice (or at least his regular American accent).
High: Like I mentioned, I almost put the voice cast here, but I decided to instead go the animation route. This film was wonderfully animated. The action scenes were great & were exactly what a movie about alien robots who can transform into vehicles should be. The background & scenery of the planet, both above and below the surface, was stunning. And the character designs were a little different from past iterations, but worked in the film’s favor. I think I’d say this is the best animated film I’ve seen in 2024, surpassing ‘Inside Out 2.’ I would also say it would be my frontrunner for Best Animated Feature. However, I have yet to watch the other 2024 animated robot movie, ‘The Wild Robot’ which many folks consider the favorite.
Low: The marketing for this film was garbage. That doesn’t affect my viewing of the movie at all, but it’s just sad. There was no reason this movie shouldn’t have made a significant profit at the box office. The marketing was almost non existent, especially for a film that’s a part of a big franchise & has some very bankable stars in it. The reason I watched & reviewed this movie now is because it’s out to stream on Paramount+. But I had no idea it was. I like to think I’m pretty plugged into film news, updates, & the like, but this wasn’t even on my radar. I got on Paramount+ to watch ‘Gladistor’ to prepare for the new one and saw this was now streaming, so I went ahead and watched it. Honestly, I don’t think this movie would’ve been on many people’s radar at all if it wasn’t for that one guy on Twitter. Film Twitter people know who I’m talking about. Shoutout to that guy.
Rating: 8.5/10
