REEL | 'Transformers One' Animates An Alien Robot Origin

"It's time to show them we are more than meets the eye."

Paramount Animation / Hasbro Entertainment

Hasbro's animated origin film about its popular transforming alien robot toy franchise, Transformers One, highlights its characters' beginnings on their home planet of Cybertron before becoming the warring Autobots and Decepticons on Earth. Directed by former Pixar animator Josh Cooley, it's a fun, more kid-friendly telling of the popular action figures.

Fronted by an impressive cast of vocal talent, Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry voice the best friend Energon miner robots, Orion Pax and D-16, the future rivals and leaders to be known as Optimus Prime and Megatron, alongside Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm. They all make for an amusing dynamic by enhancing the animated film's sense of adventure.

Scripted by Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari, the animated film starts off quickly and packs some fast character transformations in its hundred-minute runtime. Transformers One serves as a capable origin for a new cinematic interpretation of the transforming robot toys but hardly adds much else to the lore from the many different existing animated or live-action adaptations.


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