104 min | PG | September 20, 2024 | Paramount Pictures
The Transformers franchise goes animated and tells the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron as friends who became enemies. The best Transformers film since 1986. That is not a joke.
Before they were Optimus Prime and Megatron, they were Orion Pax and D-16. Mining bots on Cybertron without the ability to transform. Friends who shared a dream of something better. They discover that their society is built on lies and their response to that discovery splits them apart. Orion Pax believes in reform. D-16 believes in revolution. The friendship becomes the war. Josh Cooley takes the most exhausted franchise in Hollywood and finds the story it always should have been telling.
Chris Hemsworth voices Orion Pax with earnest idealism. Brian Tyree Henry voices D-16 with a growing rage that is the film’s emotional core. The friendship between them is genuine and the betrayal is earned. Henry’s voice performance in the third act, as D-16 becomes Megatron, is remarkable. Scarlett Johansson voices Elita-1 with sharp authority. Keegan-Michael Key voices Bumblebee with comic energy that provides relief without undermining the drama. Laurence Fishburne voices Alpha Trion with gravitas.
Cooley directed Toy Story 4 and brings the same attention to character and emotion. The animation is gorgeous. Cybertron is rendered with a visual depth and mechanical beauty that the live-action films never achieved. The action sequences are creative and legible. You can follow every movement, every transformation, every impact. The score supports the emotional arc. The world-building is dense and specific. Cybertron feels like a real place with a real history and real politics.
The Transformers franchise has produced seven live-action films of varying quality, most of them bad. This animated film is better than all of them. It takes the mythology seriously. It gives the characters motivations that matter. The fall of D-16 into Megatron is a genuine tragedy. The film earns its ending by making you care about two robots who used to be friends. That is harder than it sounds and Cooley makes it look effortless.