Transformers One

The eighth instalment in the distended franchise goes back to the story’s roots in an animated version, and proves even more mechanical and mind-numbing.

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

It was a crazy idea. The only reason that the Transformers films were remotely cool in the first place was witnessing the reaction of the human characters to the shape-shifting abilities of the eponymous aliens. One minute they were RoboCop, the next a Volkswagen Beetle – just like the toys produced by the parent company Hasbro. But as the line between CGI and photo-realistic animation has become increasingly blurred, it is meaningless to scrap the human element and animate the entire cartoonish enterprise and set it a million light years from earth.

As the booming voice-over of Laurence Fishburne prattles on about the Matrix and tries to set up the origins story of this ludicrous franchise, we are introduced to the upside-down world of Cybertron. Here, a colony of boxy worker-robots called Primes mine the planet of its vital life-force Energon, lapping up the lies fed to them by the almighty Sentinel Prime. At this stage in the proceedings, future rivals Optimus Prime and Megatron are best buddies, fist-bumping their way to a united front. What they don’t know is that Sentinel has stolen their transformation cogs, rendering them all but sterile in the hierarchy of Cybertron. Then naughty Optimus breaks into the planet’s archive and watches a hologram that reveals more than he is meant to know… And so on.

As one Prime is pretty indistinguishable from the next – in spite of the efforts of a starry vocal cast – it’s hard to engage with the so-called story, or to give a toss. The humour is largely of the sarcastic variety (B-127/Bumblebee: “A cave with teeth – nothing scary about that”), while a romantic subplot was nixed at the planning stage (who doesn’t like to watch robots getting it on?). Brian Tyler’s grandiloquent score guides us through the emotional highs and lows, so we know how we should feel at any given moment, although the predominant feeling is of confusion and ennui. Imagine watching Cars, Cars 2 and Cars 3 on repeat, but without the idiosyncrasy and laughs. Actually, one would probably reap more joy from watching a car assembly line and superimposing our own emotions onto the moving parts. With this and Terrifier 3, it has proved to be a particularly dismal week for the multiplex, regardless of what some critics are saying.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Voices of: Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, Jon Hamm, Vanessa Liguori, Evan Michael Lee, James Remar. 

Dir Josh Cooley, Pro Don Murphy, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Michael Bay, Mark Vahradian and Aaron Dem, Ex Pro Steven Spielberg, Screenplay Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, Ph Christopher Batty, Pro Des Jason William Scheier, Ed Lynn Hobson, Music Brian Tyler, Sound Scott Martin Gershin and Chris Richardson. 

Paramount Animation/Hasbro Entertainment/New Republic Pictures/Di Bonaventura Pictures/Bayhem Films-Paramount Pictures.
103 mins. USA. 2024. US Rel: 20 September 2024. UK Rel: 11 October 2024. Cert. PG.