Transformers One
Year: 2024
Rating: PG
Length: 104 minutes / 1.73 hours
For a series that originally appealed to children, it felt like the Transformers movie franchise took a long time to focus on its original demographic again. Sure, the nostalgia bait of the early Michael Bay films led to its continued popularity. But focusing on smaller, origin-based stories like Bumblebee (2018) has brought some life back into the flashy, CGI-heavy explosion fests that these movies had become. That’s why I was pleased to find Transformers One (2024) reaching back to the roots of its original audience and focusing on the medium that kicked everything off: animation.
Compared to the busy, almost incomprehensible action sequences of the previous live-action movies in the franchise, Transformers One has focused and well-designed set pieces that lean into the fact that animation can often do more than any live-action/CGI hybrid could. There was almost a beauty to the simplicity of the character designs instead of the eye-watering detail that plagued the Michael Bay movies. That it took this long to even get a movie like this likely proves that there was a sunk cost fallacy happening behind the scenes.
Plot-wise, there’s nothing terribly interesting to write home about. As an origin story for Optimus Prime (Chris Hemsworth) and Megatron (Brian Tyree Henry), anyone who knew anything about Transformers would know that they wouldn’t be friends by the end of the film. Still, the journey is a fun one, with only a smattering of dumb jokes that will get the kids laughing and a handful of lines that will make the adults chuckle. Ultimately, I felt this movie was more appropriate to show to my children than any of the live action ones (at least for the time being).
A great modern Transformers film to introduce new kids to the franchise, I give Transformers One 4.0 stars out of 5.
