Transformers One: A Baffling Movie
Transformers One Doesn’t Ease You Into The Film
Let’s make something clear about my reviewing Transformers One: I have no horses in this race. Transformers is not my fandom. I have no notable history with it. I am aware of it through other people talking about it, but that’s about it. So, I can speak on it without nostalgia, without a sense of fan betrayal for whatever aspect they changed. I am not objective—this is a critical media review—but I’m judging it as a standalone movie.
And as a standalone movie, Transformers One is really weird. Not bad. It’s actually better than I expected. Better than the opening scenes certainly signaled. But weird. And a lot to accept without prior context.
This Is Some Of The Worst Info-Dumping I’ve Seen
Like, this movie starts off with an info dump with the weakest justification—and then keeps piling on. It’s trying to be science fiction, but it’s actually incredibly dense high fantasy. Lots of the special terminology sounds the same phonetically, and we don’t know what exactly all of it is for right away. We’re somehow expected to internalize the lore about a dead god, special heroes, an enemy alien race, shifting landscapes with weird rules, and a quest for a poorly explained magical object. And that’s not even getting into how Transformers One has a subplot about a class of people oppressed because they don’t have a specific mechanical part in their chests.
But, eventually, I got a handle on the worldbuilding enough to follow the story. I got what was happening. I had a lot of questions—and still have concerns about the implications—but I was following along. By this point, I was pretty sure Transformers One was moving toward a standard hero’s journey. I was prepared to predict the whole plot but to try and enjoy the storytelling along the way.
The Movie’s Opening Is Somehow Kind Of Generic
But then Transformers One went weird again. In a movie like this, you would expect certain events to happen at certain times. There’s a plotline about a resistance and you’d probably assume joining that resistance would kick off the main adventure. But that doesn’t happen until more than 50% into this movie! It’s just set up and more set up and more set up. There’s a big action scene that in any other film would be the climax but arguably happens before the inciting incident. The pacing is like no other movie I’ve seen. And the fact that it somehow wraps back around to being a generic fantasy plot with a big, extended battle sequence at the very last minute makes me even more curious why this was the structure. It’s like they wanted to have Transformers One be the first part of a two-parter, but simply couldn’t. It’s like the pilot for a show but forced to also be the finale for that same show. I want to study Transformers One, not because it’s great but because it’s breaking convention seemingly just because it can.
Transformers One Is Only Occasionally Predictable
And the chaos doesn’t stop there. Scenes are sometimes well-animated—it’s a fully new world, with its own interesting features—but also visually quite cluttered. There’s a scene with a runaway train that went on for too long and is visibly hard to track. Battle scenes sometimes are these smooth, continuous series of devastating hits and cool displays of situational awareness, and sometimes have too many combatants in the fray to really understand the flow of battle.
But the chaos does finally mellow out with the characters—because they’re not the most well-developed. Most of them are just generic character archetypes for this sort of story. Bumblebee borders on being really annoying sometimes as the comic relief. Elita is a competent badass second-in-command who feels underutilized. Optimus is a generically kind-hearted protagonist who doesn’t even have a real backstory. And so on. The only interesting one is Megatron, because we do start with him as a hero and watch him change over. You can really feel the emotional devastation he’s experiencing. The only issue is his specific actions sometimes feel somewhat random. The final conflict with Optimus rushed.
Don’t Expect Deep Character Work From This Film
I should also mention the voice acting. It’s good voice acting—the comedy and the drama both delivered solidly—but it’s distracting having all these famous people in these roles. It’s the same issue I had with The Super Mario Bros. Movie. I could not stop hearing the actor talking, instead of the character. It ruined a big chunk of my immersion. And this movie isn’t easy to get immersed in at the best of times.
And with that little dig, you’re perhaps asking if this movie is worth watching, considering I’ve not been the most kind to it. Fans of Transformers will likely watch regardless, but, if you’re like me, will you enjoy it?
Well, it’s got a funny joke in the first few minutes. It’s got some cool action scenes. It’s certainly never boring. But there are just simply better movies you could be watching. Even if you want robots in your fiction, The Wild Robot is so much better. Transformers One is the definition of a middle-of-the-road animated movie.
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