Transformers One (2024)

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You’ve most likely seen the many Transformers related reviews I’ve posted on here, and I’ll never get tired of talking about them as I’m forever a fan of the franchise. So it goes without saying I had to check out the latest film entry, Transformers One, which really was more than meets the eye as it’s surprisingly dark and violent, but still has plenty of humor and heart for all.

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Things kick off long ago in the early years of Cybertron in a city called Iacon with a young miner bot named Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) sneaking into an archive building and trying to find more info on the thirteen primes and the matrix of leadership. You see, 50 years ago (or cycles as they call it) the primes lost their lives defending the planet from the evil Quintessons, and since they died and matrix was lost, their energy source called energon has dried up.

Which leads us to our miner bot Orion and his best friend D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) working hard in the mines to dig up energon for their fellow bots. While they appreciate their jobs, Orion can’t help but feel there’s more to life than just being a miner and that’s why he’s trying to find the matrix, so he can give it to the one prime that survived the Quintesson attack, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) and hopefully have a better life.

D-16 is perfectly happy just being a miner and tries to be the voice of reason for him and Orion, but still gets pulled into Orion’s wild misadventures and antics. After one of Pax’s biggest escapades lands them both in deep trouble, they’re cast deep underground in the trash management level where a bot named B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key) is thrilled to meet them and have someone to talk to, but he tends to talk a little too much.

It isn’t long before the adventure truly begins after the three discover an old distress signal from Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne), and they escape their trash prison to hitch a ride on a train to the planet’s surface to search for Trion and hopefully find the matrix of leadership. It’s here Orion and D-16 run into their old boss, Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) that’s not too happy with them after their last misadventure got her fired and demoted to trash duty.

After showing her the distress message though, she decides to tag along and help them in their quest. To say anymore would ruin the story and fun, but needless to say there’s a lot of humor as well as surprisingly dark and violent times ahead for them as they get closer to the truth about what really happened to the primes and the matrix.

This is one of those films I’m so glad I went into without knowing much about it, as I was pleasantly surprised at how awesome this turned out to be. I had a wonderful time from start to finish as director Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) knew exactly how to make this movie come together. Everything from the voice acting and casting was spot on, as well as the artwork, animation, and even the electronica filled soundtrack done by the same guy (Brian Tyler) that worked on one of my favorite series, Transformers Prime.

If you’re a Transformers buff like I am, you’ll also get a kick out of the many cameos throughout the film, such as noticing a lot of familiar faces in the background like Wheeljack, Ratchet, Jazz, Ironhide, Sideswipe and others. I also loved how they got the great Steve Buscemi to voice Starscream in this film, and you get to see how he and some of the other future Decepticons got their start.

If you love Transformers or just great animated films, you’ll absolutely want to transform and roll out to enjoy Transformers One. It’s got everything you could want from a family friendly film, but also has a few dark and violent moments for adults and old school fans like myself that’ll find their sparks for this franchise reignited all over again.