The following review contains some mild spoilers!
My review of the Transformers One movie.
It really doesn’t take that much to make a good Transformers movie. Some cool robots, who can transform into vehicles, as your main characters. An exciting story, simple enough for kids, but still sophisticated enough for adults. A few cool fight scenes that are more than just the mowing down of faceless grey drones. A touch of humor, just enough to underscore the seriousness of the plot, but not enough to undermine it. Then put everything together with some epic music and you’re done.
Transformers One shows how that’s done and makes it look easy.
Without wanting to spoil too much, the plot of the movie is summarized quite quickly. The two miners Orion Pax and D-16 from the workers class (robots unable to transform) are looking for a higher purpose in life and accidentally end up in conflict with the establishment, especially with big kahuna Sentinel Prime. In the end their entire world is upended and suddenly the two former friends, almost brothers, end up facing each other as enemies.
Transformers One manages the balancing act of being an entertaining adventure movie on one hand, where we follow a group of four very distinct Transformers characters on a journey into the unknown, as well as being an interesting character study on the other hand, showing how traumatic events impact people differently. D-16’s transition from a friendly miner to a brutal warlord is quick, yes, but entirely believable and non-forced. And even though Orion’s change isn’t anywhere as extreme as his friend’s, it’s also believable.
Something that I really liked personally: the movie starts off, pretending to be yet another hunt for some sort of magical McGuffin like we’ve seen so many times before, in this case the Matrix of Leadership. It’s not at all about that, though. Yes, the Matrix does appear in the end, but it isn’t really in any way important for the plot. I like that.
Another positive thing: the movie features quite a few Easter eggs and inside jokes for Transformers fans, but they are subtle and don’t interrupt (or worse, replace) the plot. Which convinces me that even people who have never had any contact with the Transformers franchise before will be able to understand and enjoy this movie.
Sure, a few plot developments are very much predictable. The fact that Sentinel Prime (who is largely based on his namesake from the Animated cartoon) is not the wise and kind leader he pretends to be won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone, I think. That a society, which is basically built on the backs of a factually enslaved workers class, won’t endure for long is pretty clear from the get-go, too. And no Transformers fan will be in any way surprised, I think, that D-16 will assume the name Megatron later in the movie and turns against Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime.
A few questions remain open after the movie ends. What’s going to happen with the Quintessons now? What about all those transforming robots in Iacon, who did not work in the mines? What did they do all day and what will happen to them now, seeing as they are at least somewhat complicit? Why did so many Bots follow Megatron into exile, even though Optimus Prime just kicked his butt but good and got the Energon flowing again, too? But those are really just nitpicks and don’t take away any of the fun from this highly enjoyable movie.
Transformers One is an exciting, entertaining movie, which treats the Transformers as characters, not special effects, and puts them front and center in a good and coherent story. I left the cinema with a smile on my face. So in closing I can only say: great movie! Fully recommended!
A few final thoughts:
- B-127 aka Bumblebee is the only Bot who does not go by his “real” name by the end of the movie. Maybe so that people who watched the Bumblebee Movie don’t get too confused?
- Apart from the four main characters and Sentinel Prime, none of the Transformers are more than background extras. That’s fully okay, though, and not just because it’s four more fleshed-out characters than we’ve seen in any Transformers movie since 2009.
- The soundtrack is modern, yes, but contains enough classical scoring to carry the mood throughout the movie.
- The humorous elements from the trailers are pretty much it as far as humor goes in the movie. The rest of it is pretty serious, without descending into “edgy” darkness.
- The mystical elements are few. Sure, we have the glowing core of the planet and the ghosts of the Primes, but otherwise the story is very much down-to-Earth (or Cybertron, rather).
- It might be said the Matrix of Leadership in this movie is little more than the missing fuse for the planet’s Energon pumps.
- Sentinel Prime might just be a take on real world populist would-be dictators, especially with his lines about how the truth doesn’t matter, the truth is what he says it is.