You've got a friend in Megatron

‘Transformers One” gives fighting robots the Pixar treatment

When it comes to the fragility of male friendship, there’s more than meets the eye.

“Transformers One,” the first animated entry in the robots-who-turn-into-cars-who-turn-into-robots franchise, is a prequel that purports to go back to when good robot Optimus Prime and evil robot Megatron were best buds. You don’t care, you say? You didn’t watch the bloated city-wrecking Michael Bay live-action movies and wonder “What’s the emotional backstory behind this relationship?”

Me neither, which is part of the reason “Transformers One” is so much fun. By not lugging around all that robot lore, the movie is able to hit “refresh” and just be an  entertaining movie that’s smarter (or, at least, not as dumb) as you’d expect.

In this world, Orion Pax (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) have no idea they’re going to become superhero and supervillain, respectively, someday. They’re both low-level miners in the robot city of Iacon City, toiling deep under the earth to find the energy (called, imaginatively, energon) that the city needs to survive. Pax is the optimistic rule-breaker who thinks he can do better in life, while the cautious D just wants to do his job and not break protocol.

Back in the day, the ruling Transformers, known as the Primes, benevolently ruled the city, and the energon flowed like water. But the Primes all disappeared on a mysterious mission many moons ago, and the energon dried up. The only surviving Prime, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), is more of a bread-and-circuses guy, preening for the adoring masses, and goes on secret missions ostensibly to look for the missing Primes and the source of their power, the Matrix of Leadership. 

After being busted down to waste management and befriending a motormouth ‘bot named B-127 (a legitimately funny Keegan-Michael Key bringing the comic relief), the duo find what looks like a map to the Matrix among the trash. They plan to bring the map to Sentinel, or even find the Matrix themselves. But along the way, they discover the truth behind the legends they’ve been told.

“Transformers One” delivers all the rock ‘em sock ‘em joy that fans want out of a “Transformers” movie, including a “Ben Hur”-style race through the city that results in a lot of severed and smashed robot parts. The environments are always vibrant and interesting, from the dazzling colorful metallic architecture of Iacon City to the trippy fractal mountains on the surface of Cybertron, where golden robotic deer graze.

But it matters a lot that director Josh Cooley cut his teeth on Pixar films like “Toy Story 4” and “Inside Out.” Amid the spectacle, he and screenwriters Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari are always interested in what’s going on between the metallic ears of its characters. There’s a particular focus on the brotherly bond between Pax and D, which frays as they learn the hard truths of their world. 

Is it believable that one of the movie’s biggest heroes would become its greatest villain? Maybe not, but it certainly is interesting, more interesting than what’s going on in most “Transformers” movies. “Transformers” will always be most beloved to Generation X as a cartoon series in the ‘80s, so it’s fitting that the franchise has literally gone back to the drawing board for one of its best efforts.