Transformers One
Just when we are all ready to quit watching movies that are nothing but remakes of the same old story, along comes a movie like Josh Cooley’s “Transformers One”. There has never been a Transformers movie before. It’s so sincere, adding actual elements of excitement and freshness to a prequel, which is quite frankly, in school, should have never existed.
The attention here also comes from Cooley’s astounding ability, for making those who, ‘toys’ are dear to their hearts, listeners will be able to tell interesting stories about the characters in “Toy Story 4.” He does this here pretending to both develop the personalities of characters who, without a doubt, are quite charismatic but are scarcely blessed with appeal and complexity. There are plenty of fascinating concepts here. For instance, what if you lived in a world where people had no knowledge of the characters, and even less knowledge of the fact that the Decepticons and Autobots fought across galaxy? For once characters could be introduced in a fully fleshed universe without ever being shocked that the character’s destinies entangled them in the end.
It is quite possible that the sensation would be something like watching the ‘Star Wars’ trilogies in chronological order, without having the knowledge that there exists a pretty serious fight between close friends and army generals Obi Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, and they don’t refer to each other in a friendly tone.
No doubt the characters referenced here will be Optimus Prime and Megatron. To begin, they are now introduced in their origins as unloved loners, namely Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry). Orion Pax and D-16 are said to be miners on the planet Cybertron which is inhabited by intelligent robots that are sub divided into two classes, those possessing transformation cogs or t-cogs and those that lack them. The latter are basically Energon miners, the food/fuel which the robots are dependent on, that are turned into slaves. All this mining activity is as a result of the planets loss of the mythical Matrix of Leadership. Orion Pax’s is made to believe that with the help of D-16 if they manage to locate it they will not only eradicate the use of slaves but also enable the downtrodden underclass to rise to their full potential as more than second class citizens.
Say what?! the reader thinks to himself or herself. Has josh Cooley somehow distorted the Transformers into some weird combination of a labor-management struggle cloak and a slave revolution story? Well, yes.
Understandably, with a tale like that, you cannot make it too far without attracting ire from the megacorporation that funds the works in this case, Paramount, which as at this time, is becoming a fully owned subsidiary of tech tycoon David Ellison Skydance Media. And there ends up being a hint of monarchial fetishism mixed in by the end only because the boys are looking for a metaphysical object that gives superhuman powers instead of allowing them to write a constitution and create a parliament. Not that anyone would want to watch a film whose content is like that for a very long time, Transformers fans have been in a setting of ‘find the magic object and fulfill your destiny’ which is what the Transformers films are all entertainment, that is right, who wouldn’t want to watch gigantic metallic beings clashing then turning into cars or airplanes! and indeed, after an actress sprinting sequence but with twists here and there, eventually, the movie does get there, depicting a large scale war akin to ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.
It is, however, rather intriguing to watch this kind of material being attempted with an ounce of delicacy and charm. Orion Pax and D-16 have two other co-robotics in their quest, which includes two trash disposal bots. One of them is B-127 (Keegan Michael Key), an insecure funny guy who has ideas of being rebranded ‘Badassatron’ and the other is Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) who is more or less a patented package of high wattage competence (Johansson and Key have been typecast like this before, and most certainly will be again). The big set pieces are all choreographed and staged with emphasis on timing and humor, thus making it unnecessary for the film to be dull, cliched or merely serve the fans. There are villains in the story as well but they are not of much concern. It is a romance drama.
In as far as reasons to view and appreciate the movie other than the fact that they manage to offer something new while giving fans the thing that they consistently want aries the way Orion Pax and D-16’s relationship evolves over the course of the film. There is a tragic weight to the unfolding of the story. It’s so organically interlaced in Cooley and co’s story that one doesn’t get the sense that the film is being forced to suffer from a load that it isn’t strong enough to bear, Old Testament elements of the story, and the case in point being the story of Cain and Abel. But it does have weight, because it accepts what is to come and does not shy away from it. Henry’s vocal performance is particularly grand as it almost sounds like he is a larger than life character wanting to do good but terrible voices only lead him to chaos. D-16’s gradual moral demise is depicted in an engaging way that D-16 ends up becoming a tyrant which he and his friend used to hate. The new boss remains unchanged from the old boss, and is just as uncompromising as before.
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