Review | Transformers One movie review: refreshing origin stories of Optimus Prime and Megatron

Transformers One, featuring the voices of Scarlett Johansson and Chris Hemsworth, returns to the franchise’s animated roots in this prequel

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Orion Pax (left, voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) in a still from Transformers One (category I), directed by Josh Cooley.

James Marsh

Published: 9:00pm, 12 Sep 2024

3/5 stars

The origins of Optimus Prime and Megatron are laid out in Transformers One, a new animated prequel adventure from Josh Cooley, the director of Toy Story 4.

Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson and Jon Hamm headline an all-star voice cast in a film that reinvigorates a franchise that had languished for too long under the questionable stewardship of Michael Bay.

While Bay and Steven Spielberg remain listed as producers, Transformers One could not be further removed from the chaotic live-action spectacles that fetishised fast cars and scantily clad babes over the adventures of feuding alien robots.

TRANSFORMERS ONE | Official Trailer 2 (2024 Movie) - Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry

Transformers One relocates the action to their home planet of Cybertron, to explore how a pair of best friends became sworn enemies and why the fate of their homeland was thrown into existential peril.

Long before Optimus Prime fled to Earth, assumed the appearance of a Freightliner articulated truck and befriended a young boy named Sam Witwicky, he was a simple, non-transforming miner known as Orion Pax (Hemsworth).