No Disguises
Now, that’s more like it.
Transformers One
Director: Josh Cooley • Writers: Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari, based on the Hasbro toys
Starring [English]: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm
USA • 1hr 44mins
Opens Hong Kong Sep 19 • I
Grade: B+
Yes, it’s an origin story. Yes, it was produced by Michael Bay (among others), the maestro/monster of the contemporary Transformers movie. Yes, it drives another nail into the coffin of voice acting as specialised profession. But director Josh Cooley’s Transformers One is a rock solid entertainment that sends the Robots in Disguise back to where they belong: the storyboard.
T-One follows in the foosteps of Spider-Man: Into/Across the Spiderverse and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem less in its story beats (though many are familiar) as it does in spirit. They’re all modern animations of beloved franchises, toys and comic characters that have been pounded into unrecognisable oblivion by modern CGI and overly-enthusiastic editing. The three show off what they did best – gorgeous artwork, snarky dialogue – and make for a lovely retro triple bill. Transformers One isn’t going to set the world on fire for its innovation, but it looks tremendous, gets to the damn point and has some legit funny jokes. What more could you want?
Suck it, Mattel
So where did the animus between Optimus Prime and Megatron come from, no one asked, ever? Well sit right down and Cooley, a veteran storyboard artist whose first film was the unneccesary but enjoyable in fits Toy Story 4, will tell you. He gets help from lead writer Eric Pearson, who has strong nerd bona fides, with credits for Thor: Ragnarok, Pokémon Detective Pikachu, uncredited brush-ups on Spider-Man: Homecoming, the last Avengers chapters – and the forthcoming Thunderbolts*, The Fantastic 4: First Steps and, gulp, Blade.
Between them they concoct a story about how Cybertron has been forced to mine valuable Energon and live underground in the wake of a conflict that ended with the disappearance of the Matrix of Leadership. The miners are a bunch of Transformers without cogs, which renders them unable to transform – much to the chagrin of Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth), who has aspirations of somehow finding the Matrix, handing it to Cybertron leader Sentinel Prime (effortlessly smarmy Jon Hamm) and becoming a hero. Blah blah blah up to the surface, yadda yadda yadda a vast conspiracy, you know the game. Orion Pax is joined on his mission by bestie D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), and eventually Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key), who prefers the handle Badassatron. These characters eventually become Optimus Prime, Megatron, Ariel and Bumblebee.
You know what? Let me take that back about innovation. Transformers One is an outlier among animation these days for taking the time to write legitimately witty dialogue that’s not so trendy it will go out of style, making it part of efficiently, cleverly drawn characters and precision balancing that with drama, stellar action set pieces (the race, the train), gorgeous 3D visuals and excellent voice performances. By the time the final throwdown happens and Cybertron perches itself on the verge of the civil war we know so well from Bay’s noisier, more obnoxious, more racist, less funny live action series we know the likes of Bumblebee, Starscream (Steve Buscemi), Shockwave (Jason Konopisos-Alvarez) and Jazz (Evan Michael Lee) better than we ever did before. This is the best Transformers movie of the modern (?) era, it’s straight up fun, and it might actually be a teensy bit better than 2018’s Bumblebee. Man, not in a million years did I ever think I’d say a Transformers movie was channelling peak Pixar but there you have it. More than meets the eye. Sorry. Couldn’t resist. — DEK