Transformers ONE
What To Know Before Watching It
Transformers ONE directed by Josh Cooley tells the story of Orion Pax’s and D-16’s friendship start to fall apart and become Optimus Prime and Megatron. This movie is a prequel, taking place 3 billion years before any of the other Transformer films that came before it. Meaning you don’t have to see any previous installments to see this film. You don’t even have to know anything about Transformers to see it. This movie explains the history of their home planet called Cybertron. For It’s cast, Chris Hemsworth plays Orion Pax, Brian Tyree Henry plays D-16, Keegan-Michael Key is B-127, and Scarlett Johansson is Elita-1.
My Review
Transformers ONE is one of the greatest Transformer films and one of the best animated films of this year. This movie is surprisingly a bit dark but still being kid friendly. This movie can also be emotional. The look of this movie is really great and the backgrounds in this film are beautiful. From the underground city of Iacon to the surface mountain landscape looks amazing. The characters design also looks good and they have their classic look from the old TV series. Their cogless form is rusty and worn down, their form with a cog is very shiny, smooth, and brand new. The animation is also really great too. You can see their emotion through their faces and with their body movements. The fight scenes look smooth, especially in the third act. The second act has a little bit of action but the third act, almost every scene has action in it. The animation gets incredible when the characters transform into their vehicles. You can see a lot of pieces moving into place while transforming into their vehicles and back into their normal form. The story is put together really well. The story is about two lower class mining worker bots Orion Pax and D-16 trying to find Energon that hasn’t been flowing though Cybertron ever since the death of the Primes. Orion, not wanting just to be mining bots that can’t transform, attempts to show all of Iacon they are more than meets the eye. D-16, B-127, and Elita-1 join the adventure to try and find the Matrix of Leadership which would bring Energon back flowing through Cybertron. However things start to take a turn when they learn the dark secrets behind one of Cybertrons only living Primes, Sentinel Prime. Like I said before the story is well put together. Nothing is left unfinished or unmentioned. The character development is also really shown throughout this film. Orion Pax going to a low worker bot wanting to be greater going to become a leader of all the autobots and then to become the next Prime. With D-16 he feels betrayed and even hurt for what Sentinel Prime did to them. He just wants nothing more but to get revenge on Sentinel and kill him. Throughout the film he gets more and more evil until he finally becomes Megatron. With B-127 and Elita-1 just wanting to make a better world aftering knowing of Sentinels betrayal. A common nitpick or criticism for a lot of reviewers is the transition of D-16 becoming Megatron and I can agree. Although D-16’s reason to become evil is a bit reasonable it still feels a bit forced. There is a certain action scene where they’re just learning to use their abilities to fight back against an enemy and D-16 is excited to use his abilities and to fight back while the movie treats it like he’s already turning evil. But that’s the only criticism I have and can agree on for this movie. One last positive I have for this film is the voice acting. For the first time in over 40 years Optimus Prime isn’t voiced by Peter Cullen and is now voiced by Chris Hemsworth who is rumored to be the main human protagonist in the next live-action Transformers movie. Beside that, the two main highlights are obviously Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry as Orion Pax and D-16. They do such an amazing job and you can feel the tone of their voice shift during their character’s character development. They do such a great job that you can feel how strong their friendship is. Personally, I was able to see myself and my best friend. It was so emotionally sad when Orion and D-16’s friendship finally fell apart and they become enemies.
My Final Thoughts
Transformers ONE is one of the most surprising films I have watched. Considering most people can agree, its first trailer did not show the public’s interest. The first trailer for this film made it seem like it was just a boring kids film that isn’t gonna take itself seriously. This film was set during the time Optimus Prime and Megatron became enemies and right before the war on Cybertron. But now that I’ve seen it, it is an amazing movie. It’s emotion, it’s action packed, it’s story is well structured, the animation and look is great, and the voice acting is remarkable. Transformers fans will love it and people that casually go and see movies will love it as well. This movie gets a 9/10, I highly recommend you go see it as it is a movie that should be more beloved. I give credit to Nicholas Castillo and 3c films, Nick’s review for Godzilla x Kong The New Empire inspired me to make this and 3c films review video for this movie helped me know what to say.