The Transformers franchise has been one of the most interesting franchises to watch over the years, considering the last movie we saw from them was Transformers : Rise of the Beasts, which has a 51% on Rotten Tomatoes. The announcement that the franchise was going to try animation was surprising to me, and I was excited for how it would work out. Transformers One is a lot different from what we saw from Michael Bay and others. Firstly, there are absolutely no humans in this movie. All the characters are autobots, or the rival alien group the Quintessons, and the whole entire story is set on the planet Cybertron. This is very interesting for world-building, and the amount of Transformers lore there is out there is crazy to me. I’m not necessarily a big Transformers fan in the first place, but what drew me to the movie was the amount of celebrity voice acting in this movie.

Celebrity voice acting is an interesting case. When you set up your whole marketing scheme around the fact everyone knows these actors from other popular franchises, it somewhat diminishes some of the creative outlook. Voice acting is an actual job for a lot of people, and just bringing in celebrities to do the job somewhat feels like a cash grab. Now, I’m not saying the voice acting was bad, I was actually rather happy with the job done. Still, I do have a minor complaint about some of the choices. Chris Hemsworth doesn’t have any notable animated voice acting jobs before this, unless you count his voice for Thor in the Marvel series What If? So, the decision for him to voice one of the most famous pop culture voices, Optimus Prime, is surprising. I would argue that he did a fine job, but there was definitely someone who had to be more fit for the job. All the other voice acting is fine, I actually do enjoy Brian Tyree Henry and Lawrence Fishbourne as Megatron and Alpha Trion, but all the other celebrities feel somewhat forced.

The story is entertaining, with a plot of once best friends turned enemies, and the animation is done really well. Some of my favorite parts are the first action scenes where they’re transforming and using their vehicles to take down enemies in a creative way, and the overall banter with the heroes is entertaining, too. Overall, the movie is good, it’s not bad at all, and the Transformers franchise can probably lean on animation for another movie. I’d probably give it a 7.5/10, and recommend it if you want a nice, fun watch.