Transformers One

“Transformers One” has just about transformed me into a fan. I know — based on a toy and a Saturday morning cartoon series and lots of movies already so it was hard to imagine that they could surprise me, but they did, with well-designed action scenes, an origin story drawing from classic sources, and A-list actors bringing their A-game as voice talent.

Quick recap: Transformers turn from robot-y creatures into car creatures. The good ones are the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime and they befriend humans. The goofy one is Bumblebee. The bad guys are Decepticons, led by Megatron. The bots we meet here will become these characters.

It takes place long before the Autobots come to earth. They are on their home planet, called Cybertron, where an arrogant ruler cruelly oppresses the worker bots. Cybertron is in dire distress following a brutal war with the Quintessons.

There is a sharp class distinction between the overlords, who have cogs in their chests that give them the power to transform, and the cog-less workers, who spend their days doing drudge work in the mines, looking for Energon, the once-plentiful substance that sustains them.

They are literally kept in the dark, spending their days in the mine and being lied to about who they are, the history of Cybertron, and what is really happening.

Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) are best friends. Their support for one another is what keeps them going. They do not realize that the restrictions that constrain them keep them from noticing how different they are. Orion is more optimistic, willing to take some risks. D-16 does not want to get in trouble. “No bad things happen when you stay on protocol,” he says, as Orion is beginning to understand that protocol itself is the bad thing.

Orion enters himself and D-16 into a race reserved for bots with cogs. This challenging of the hierarchy brings the unwanted attention of the cog bots, who punish Orion and D-16 by reassigning them. That is where they meet a straight-laced supervisor named Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and the goofy, motormouthed B-127 (a very funny Keegan-Michael Key, sneaking in a reference to his “Substitute Teacher” sketch).

The four bots end up on the planet’s surface, where they discover they have been lied to about pretty much everything. They were not created without cogs; their cogs were taken from them. Now be-cogged and able to transform, they discover their new powers as they learn about the lies they have been told by the forces holding their community down.

The closer they get to escaping oppression, the more the two friends find they see everything differently. Orion sees hope and opportunity. D-16 sees threats that can only be removed through power. This almost Shakespearean divide (Othello and Iago, Professor X and Magneto) adds weight and meaning and a deeper sense of transformation to the various actions scenes,.

What makes that work is the superb voice talent. Hemsworth shows us Orion’s shift from generalized naive good will to a more mature understanding of his opportunity as a leader, even as he sees the sacrifices it may require. And Brian Tyree Henry matches him, going from hesitation to hurt to anger. We are genuinely sad to see the end of their friendship even as we recognize its inevitability.

Parents should know that this PG-rated film has extended action sequences, mostly with machines battling each other. Some are injured and broken/killed and an animal is blown up. There is some mild schoolyard language, with “screwed” perhaps the strongest used.

Family discussion: Why do Orion and D-16 see the world differently? How does hope affect Orion’s thinking? How does fear and anger affect D-16’s?

If you like this, try: the original cartoons and the Michael Bay live-action films