Audiences should “rise up” and attend TRANSFORMERS ONE, the most surprisingly good entry in the series to date. After countless Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS, where the focus is more on the humans than the robots, director Josh Cooley (INSIDE OUT and TOY STORY 4) wisely spends the entire prequel on the humanless planet of Cybertronian. Despite having zero humans and being animated, ONE’s characters’ emotional arcs are what this franchise needed and prove that live-action isn’t always better.
I cannot remember the last time I had fun at a movie featuring everyone’s favorite Autobots. Yet, that’s what occurred in ONE – I had a blast and once again smiled as Optimus shouted, “roll out!” That enjoyment is personified through a winning cast with “it” chemistry usually saved for something in live-action MCU. There is so much “more than meets the eye” as Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D16 (Bryan Tyree Henry) learn if they can “watch each other’s backs.” It’s the stuff of a TV soap opera, but it’s executed at a top-tier level.
It doesn’t matter that the “cog” in the TRANSFORMERS films has become stale because Josh Cooley is the “spark” Hasbro needed to remind everyone why this IP was so loved. It’s robots that transform into vehicles with a ton of heart. And isn’t that what being a kid is? Using your imagination to turn your favorite toys into empathy machines? TRANSFORMERS was magical for me as a kid, and I’m thankful Cooley could remind me that magic still exists.
It’s available in theatres.
