Movie origin stories finally reach their nadir this week with “Transformers One,” the super-violent, toy-selling vehicle that tells the tale of how Optimus Prime and Megatron went from besties to foes. Did anyone ask for this? Did Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner ask for too much money?
The computer-animated “Transformers One” is out of time, a throwback to a few years ago when Hollywood mined popular IP for forgotten heroes, built overly complex worlds and then ramped up the action so that the audience just got numbed to a blur of battles. But “Transformers One” isn’t good enough to watch on a plane, even a trans-Pacific flight. The inflight map is better.
A map isn’t a bad idea, actually: You may need some sort of guide for this one — those uninitiated to the folklore of Cybertron are flung helplessly into references to Energon, Alpha Trion, Quintessons and something called the Matrix of Leadership. You come in halfway into a conversation.
The story by Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari is basically the Bible’s Cain and Abel with a detour into the Roman Empire and the Hasbro figurines’ accumulated mythology, which seems to be a series of never-ending epic battles between good and evil. Some stuff just seems downright weird, like why these robots need a gym or why after running they become breathless.
The main heroes here are buddies Orion Pax and D-16 — who will become mortal enemies Optimus Prime and Megatron by the end — and we meet them when they are lowly miners, basically non-transforming bots digging for reserves of the energy cleverly called Energon. This is a society in which the upper class is made up of Transformers who stomp around preening while the lower classes do dirty jobs like comb through garbage.
They all serve Sentinel Prime, the leader of the subterranean Iacon City, who is not what he seems. He is apparently the last of the Primes and lives in a marble palace, giving the people below spectacles as a diversion, like an epic road race. It gives off ancient Roman Coliseum vibes.
Orion Pax (voiced with puppy-dog sweetness by Chris Hemsworth) is not satisfied by this life. “There’s got to be something more I can do,” he says. “Aren’t you tired of being treated like you’re nothing?” Brian Tyree Henry voices D-16 with skepticism and resignation.
The two friends join with mining manager Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson, bland) and Keegan-Michael Key’s B-127 (who will later become fan favorite Bumblebee) to journey to the surface of the planet, find the Matrix of Leadership (a sort of necklace that might have been sold in the Sharper Image catalog) and get a hero’s welcome. But they learn some unsavory things about the ruler from the Transformer elder statesman Alpha Trion (the instantly recognizable Laurence Fishburne).
Director Josh Cooley, who co-wrote the screenplay for “Inside Out” and helmed “Toy Story 4,” never lets the action stop — and that’s not a compliment. The camera is constantly swiveling and the violence — assault-weapon lasers, booming cannons, light torture, martial arts crunching moves, beating a rival with their own amputated limb and ceaseless pounding — is nauseating. (“Please stop punching me in the face” is a joke line here.) If Transformers ever bled, this would be an R-rated movie.
The hyper-violence papers over some pretty robotic — sorry! — dialogue. Why do all these movies show the Transformers with cool upgrades like laser knives but they remain speaking in stilted, operatic prose? “I want him to suffer and die in darkness,” “They are to be your undoing” and “Cybertron’s future is in your hands.”
There are some good moments, of course. When our band of misfit bots get an upgrade to Transformer status, they cutely don’t know how to do it seamlessly at first, with limbs awkwardly getting mixed with vehicle parts. Anyone who has played with the toys knows the feeling. And Key never fails to generate a chuckle, proving a masterful comedic voice actor.
The other actors — Jon Hamm and Steve Buscemi, included — hardly register and the movie’s main song — “If I Fall” by Quavo, Ty Dolla $ign and Brian Tyler’s Are We Dreaming — feels like AI wrote both the uninteresting rap-rock beat and soupy lyrics (“I’m the alpha, omega, got lights on me, Vegas.” Vegas?)
The saddest thing about “Transformers One” is the wastefulness of another dull outing in a universe geared toward kids just learning to transform themselves. The lessons here, unfortunately, are that friends can become enemies overnight and you only win if you beat someone hard enough. “We’re better than this,” Orion Pax screams at his sudden rival at one point. No, they’re not.
“Transformers One,” a Paramount release that lands in theaters Friday, is rated PG for “sci-fi violence and animated action throughout, and language.” Running time: 103 minutes. Half a star out of four.
