"Freedom Is the Right of All Sentient Beings"... in Transformers One

Whenever I think about utterly iconic voices from my childhood, Peter Cullen is handily-- leagues, leaps and bounds above all others. Why? He's voiced nothing but iconic characters over the past several decades. The likes of which include the 80s Spider-Man show, GI: Joe and Gremlins, just to name a few things. If that don't impress you-- the man also narrated 122 episodes of Voltron between 1984-1985. So there's that. He was even an uncredited voice for the titular Predator in, well, Predator. But perhaps most poignantly pertinent of all, Peter Cullen is best known (for good reason) for lending his masterful vocal talents, to the flagship robo-posterboy for the Transformers franchise. He-- is Optimus Prime.

Side note: I don't care how faded my Optimus Prime shirt is (and boy, is it faded), or the fact that one of my exes gave it to me, all those many Cybertronian moons ago. Regardless of both of those aforementioned facts, I'll still wear the shirt anytime there's a new Transformers flick out in theatres. Say what you will about the five-movie run Michael Bay had, but I still love the first one from 2007. I also admittedly have a soft spot for Revenge of the Fallen (2009). Don't @ me, alright? To Bay's credit, bringing Cullen back to voice dear old OP in the live-action series was nothing short a stroke of directorial genius.

As a big summer action flick that's fun for the whole family, it is admittedly rather baffling that Paramount Pictures decided to release Transformers: One (2024) in the latter back-half of September. Right at the outskirts of Awards Season. Granted, if you really wanted to split Gregorian calendar hairs, having the film come out on September 20th, still actually qualifies it as a “Summer Release”, seeing as Fall doesn't technically tumble down into effect until the 22nd. Admittedly, I wasn't entirely too… jazzed (let's see how many Transformers jokes I can fit in here) to watch a prequel story. I don't particularly care how things came to be and why people are the way they are. I don't need everything to be explained to me. I really don't have a vested interest in where Han Solo got his vest, or how he got his ‘cooler than cool’ surname in the first place. Sometimes explaining things does indeed destroy the magic of the mysterious.

But as is my job, I walk into every single new film with as blank an opinion as possible-- so as to give each and every new cinematic experience an even shake on a level playing field. In short, Transformers One, rocks. Gone is Cullen, much to my chagrinned fanboy sadness, but arrived in his stead, is The God of Thunder, himself. Chris Hemsworth has the more than unenviable task of stepping into Cullen's various vocal boots as a younger and more brash OP, in this case named Orion Pax. And he kills it. Of course he does. As a younger Cullen, Hemsworth delivers the commanding vocalectic goods of an Autobot trying to make his mark in the galaxy.

Transformers One does pretty much everything right, which is saying a lot for the fact that the marketing did and does little service to not look like “just another prequel of an already established IP”. Ignoring the trailers (which I often tend to do), the film is simply put, a blast.

The voice cast is excellent and Grade A Top Tier. Brian Tyree Henry brings the utter pathos in Energon spades as the Megatron-in-waiting, D-16. Scarlett Johansson does solid work as always, here voicing Elita -1. Although I couldn't help but think of Alita: Battle Angel every single time they said ScarJo's mechanical birth name. We're still getting an Alita sequel, right? Right?

I'll always be excited to see or hear John Hamm in any filmic capacity. He's just “one of my guys.” Ham here absolutely… hams it up as Sentinel Prime. And I loved every single glorious moment of it. The standout of the film though has easily gotta be the bee himself, Keagan-Michael Key as Bumblebee. Or as he's known here, B-127. His comedic timing just elevates every single scene that he's in. An absolute crowd-favourite And that's one of the… key takeaways here.

The film is also genuinely funny. Not to bring it back to Bay, but to ya know-- bring it briefly back to Bay, I'm sure I'm in the minority here, but I unironically love the juvenile humour Bay peppers throughout all his films. His jokes always make me laugh., I am the lowest common denominator, and no I don't care.

The humour here in One is unquestionably cleaner for sure, so definitely fam-jam approved. To its credit, the humour is also more consistent in both laughs per minutes and tonality of the jokes. There's an incredible Key and Peele joke that once it happened, basically secured my love for this film. It went from good-- to great-- to legendary all in a matter of mere moments. And I don't know if it was necessarily a joke, but there's one line delivery by Hamm that was so funny, I just couldn't help myself but burst out laughing. I was also the only person who did so in that moment, in an otherwise silently packed theatre.

The tone is essentially a fluid, near-perfect balance between comedy and drama. The funny parts are really funny, and the serious parts are legitimately hard-hitting. As a prequel, we all essentially know what's going to happen, at least from a character standpoint. What causes the rift between OP and MT and how does The Leader of the Decepticons actually rise? If done poorly, this origin could have felt pat and pandering. The arc that D-16 goes through thankfully feels both real and earned. I actually believe in the arc. Which is not something I can say for a lot of villainous roles in many recent films. None of it would work without BTH's fabulous performance.

In terms of visual style, I also wasn't immediately sold (the trailers really didn't help anything), but once you're in the world of the actual film, the animation works. There's one particular crossing-cutting sequence in The Third Act that's so well done, I'm still buzzing about it. In fact, the whole third act just goes full bore and blasting on all flame hotrod-red cylinders. The last third of the film in particular made me feel like a kid again. And I clearly wasn't the only one.

Fan Service isn't by nature a bad thing. When done half-heartedly to tick a box and casually hand-wave-placate the audience, it can feel cheap and disingenuous. Not so here. Every moment of “fan service” was met with equal parts thunderous cheers and booming applause.

"We live in a time of easy, clinical, cash-grabbing cynics. And yet out there among the stars, there is still hope. Fate has yielded its reward. A new soft reboot has been born. I-- am Optimus Prime. And I send this message to Paramount Pictures, asking them to make more high-quality films just like this. Even though they are a young species, the human race deserves far better films than most that are rolled out on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. and yearly basis. Film studios need to do better, because human beings deserve better. We-- are here-- we-- are waiting."