Transformers One, Directed by Josh Cooley
Til all are ONE
It was weird listening to Chris Hemsworth Optimus Prime. Not bad, just weird. Peter Cullen IS Optimus Prime, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. Now that’s out of the way, it was a good movie. Took my 15 and 12 yr olds to see it and they enjoyed it. My eldest texted from university to say he enjoyed seeing it at the weekend. It is objectively a good movie.
What it’s not is a shameless cash grab to sell us toys, and I think it suffered for it. Because Hasbro wasn’t shoving new action figures down our throats in the way of the G1 and Michael Bay movies, we focused on a smaller cast, and meh. Sure, there were a few throwaway names like Jazz in the mines, and a noticeable Ironhide, as well as Decepticon Mainstays Soundwave and Starscream, but the action was really focused on the bromance turned brenemies(?) between Orion Pax and D-16. I’m just going to call them Optimus and Megatron from now on because that’s who they are.
A prequel, showing their beginnings as humble labouring bots without transformation cogs, to leaders of a robot uprising at-odds with each other’s methods. With the Transformer race being led by Sentinel Prime in the aftermath of a bitter war with squid/mirelurk enemies the Quintessons (only one face this time), our heroes uncover betrayal, oppression, and the fabled matrix of leadership to win the day.
We know Optimus Prime, we know Megatron so initially the idea of focusing a movie on them is a bit overdone, and it is a bit. Like it or not, having the Michael Bay movies focus on Bumblebee (and the humans), and the 1986 movie focus on Hot Rod gave us a different perspective than robot Skeletor and Robot He-Man. Yes, that is a bit reductive, no I don’t care.
It does suffer that annoying habit prequels have in having to explain everything. Not everything needs an origin story. We don’t need to know why Megatron calls himself that, or why the Decepticon symbol is that, or why Starscream sounds like that. Some things can just be. For the best (in my opinion) backstory for the two, read the IDW comic series. Megatron as a revolutionary Miner who writes philosophy and Optimus as a cop who comes to see the corruption around him is a great series.
Interestingly Transformers One swaps them around. Megatron is the Sentinel Prime fanboy and Optimus is the revolutionary dreamer. The music is there. It started good, a bit of synth-wave always makes me happy, but I stopped noticing it. On the subject of synth-wave, Bumblebee does make a joke about how there are a lot of Transformers with wave in their name to very little laughter.
Laughter is the way this movie goes with a lot of comedy coming at you from all angles and at all times. We moments of high action to make a joke, we stop tense interactions to make a joke, and it’s all TOO MUCH. I don’t mind a bit of humour, but it seriously undercuts every serious moment of the film. Usually, there’s a comedic foil to the straight main’s but in this film, everyone has a joke. The foil – Bumblebee – is thereby irrelevant. Also, can we stop with Bumblebee please. He’s the Transformer Wolverine, in that someone, somewhere thinks he should be in everything. Please stop.
The other thing that’s in every damned movie alive is the idea that female heroes need fame villains to fight, and they HAVE to fight. Here it’s Airachnid (see what they did there?) and Elita-1. I don’t know why elite couldn’t fight any of the other baddies, or that Airachnid needs to have her ultimate showdown against Elita but it’s a movie trope that needs to exit the building, especially when we’ve established Airachnid as powerful and scary in her own right, and Elita as extremely capable in hers. I chuckled at her line,
“You haven’t got the power, or the touch.”
Visually its great. I’m not sold on the animation style which exaggerates the boxiness of the Transformers movements, but it is generally quite beautiful. I just wish we had the time to stop enjoy it before the next set piece, which is another problem I have with the pacing of movies at the moment, not necessarily just here.
As a standalone movie I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but as a transformers movie its alright and I hope it brings more people into the fandom. I did spend time during the movie wondering what their version of Omega Supreme, Metroplex or even Devastator would be, and dearly hoping they wouldn’t find some contrived way to bring the Dinobots in before they visit Earth.
The kids enjoyed it. That’s really what counts here, not the ramblings of a millennial who grew up watching the cartoon. On the way home I said what I always say,
“Not as good as the 1986 movie.”
I meant it, even as I felt the weight of years come down on me like the baddie in Indiana Jones as I said it.
