Animation feature film “Transformers One” is one of the better Transformers flicks during last 17 years. Yes, I did not like most of those Transformers movies except a very few cases including “Bumblebee” (2018), so this may not sound like much of a compliment (I still shudder at how much I suffered due to “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (2009) and several following pointless sequels, by the way), but I must tell you that “Transformers One” leaps way, way, way beyond the dreadfully low standard of these awful products at least.  

The early part of the film quickly establishes the history of the alien planet where its main characters and many other robots live. For many ‘cycles’, most of them have worked as miners because their underground city constantly needs a precious energy source after a big battle with some other alien race, and they all certainly hope that their current leader, Sentinel Prime (voiced by Jon Hamm), will eventually find a certain invaluable item outside and then free them from their relentlessly demanding mining work someday. 

However, a young robot named Orion Pax (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) is not someone who will just wait for any possible salvation. Quite determined to find any clue which may lead him to that invaluable item in question, Orion is ready to try anything for his ultimate goal, and he frequently causes new headaches for his two close colleagues D-16 (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) and Elita-1 (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

When a big annual race is about to be held in the city, Orion comes to have a rather impulsive plan for proving himself more to others including Sentinel Prime. He participates in that race along with D-16 without telling anything to D-16 in advance, and we accordingly get the first main action sequence in the film, which feels quite frantic at first but seldom gets us confused thanks to the strong visual sense of direction.    

Anyway, Orion and D-16 consequently get themselves demoted to a more miserable job, and that is the beginning of their little adventure outside their city. Thanks to a little help from their accidental robot friend, they soon find themselves exploring the surface of their planet along with him and Elita-1, who reluctantly joins their quest for that invaluable item.

Now the story feels pretty much like your average dystopian tale, and the screenplay by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari is rather predictable in the following narrative development, but director Josh Cooley, who received an Oscar for his previous animation film “Toy Story 4” (2019), and his crew members fill the screen with small and big background details to be appreciated. While the result may not look that impressive compared to the standard of Pixar or Ghibli animation films, the film is actually packed with much more style and personality compared to many of live action Transformers flicks, and it surely reminds me again that the Transformer robots are more suitable for animation than live action film. In my reviews on many of recent Transformers movies, I frequently complained that I could not hardly distinguish one robot from another except Optimus Prime and Bumblebee. In contrast, the robot characters in “Transformers One” are much more colorful with enough detail and personality to be appreciated, and I was particularly amused by a herd of robot deer shown during the middle of the film (How do they eat and live, I wonder?).

Above all, the movie gives us the story and characters we can actually care about. While Orion’s narrative often feels conventional, it is engaging to watch how he is changed via his earnest quest for proving himself, and the story also becomes a bit more gripping for the dramatic character arc of D-16, who becomes quite different after he and his colleagues later come to learn about how they and many other robots have been deceived and exploited for a long time. The film inevitably goes for a lot of action during its last act, but we remain engaged in the story and characters nonetheless, and that is the main reason why the finale works even though it was pre-determined from the very beginning.

Furthermore, the robot characters in the film sound relatively more individual as the main voice cast members are allowed to bring more spirit to their respective roles. While Chris Hemsworth did a commendable job of sounding both noble and earnest with some sense of humor, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Jon Hamm, Steve Buscemi, and Laurence Fishburne are also solid in their game efforts, and Brian Tyree Henry, who has steadily risen as one of the most dependable actors in Hollywood during last several years, is an inarguable standout as powerfully illustrating his character’s narrative with a devastating sense of classic tragedy.

On the whole, “Transformers One” surprised me for being much more entertaining than expected. Yes, this is still a standard origin story, but the overall result is definitely a significant improvement compared to many Transformers flicks at least, and it is even more recommendable than several forgettable animation films of this year including, say, “Despicable Me 4” (2024). While I still have some reservation at this point, I am glad to see that there is a bit of hope and potential in its franchise at last, so I guess I can have some expectation on whatever may come next after this solid piece of entertainment.