As an enormous fan of Transformers: The Film, few movies on the upcoming calendar fill me with as a lot pleasure as Transformers One. Directed by Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4), the primary animated theatrical Transformers movie since that 1986 masterpiece is coming September 13 and, at CinemaCon, Paramount revealed footage for the primary time ever.
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The movie is solely set on Cybertron and tells the story of how the 2 most well-known Transformers, Optimus Prime and Megatron, went from finest mates to mortal enemies. Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry present the voices of Prime and Megatron, solely they’re not known as that at first. They’re known as Orion Pax and D-16, respectively. Filling out the solid are Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1, Keegan-Michael Key as B-127 (who’ll turn into Bumblebee), in addition to Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne, and Jon Hamm.
So how did it look? I’ve to say, I used to be dissatisfied on a number of ranges. The CG animation seems to be extra acquainted than not—simply the sort of fundamental “robots working round” you immediately image after I say that. The tone appeared geared toward a really, very younger viewers. And any hints of this promised feud and betrayal are fully lacking. Clearly, Transformers is predicated on toys so, at its core, it’s a child franchise. However after a long time of violent, live-action motion pictures and rewatches of the darkish animated unique, it has, no less than by popularity, developed a barely extra severe tone. Not completely severe, however a steadiness of humor with gravitas. Transformers One, no less than based mostly on this primary footage, isn’t that.
We meet Prime and Megatron as younger, lowly employee robots that don’t have the flexibility to remodel. They idiot round, struggle, and act like teenage brothers. Additionally, it’s essential to notice they don’t seem like the characters we all know and love. They’re virtually like a base-model robotic with none upgrades. They don’t even have faceplates, so every character has a full face: eyes, nostril, mouth. Aesthetically talking, this was, as they are saying, a selection.
After messing round within the depths of the planet, an epic journey takes the buddies to the forbidden floor of Cybertron, which is off-limits and lethal. Ultimately, we see them get the flexibility to remodel however it’s not one thing that occurs immediately. The footage exhibits the characters trying to determine methods to use their powers and bungling them loads. Prime tries to do it however then solely hides his head. Bee turns into a automobile, however can’t determine the wheels so he falls down a cliff as he screams about not having wheels.
Later, an enormous villain emerges and the group decides to make use of their newfound powers to cease him. However they nonetheless don’t have the hold of it and act all shocked and shocked as they develop issues like laser palms or face shields.
Principally, the entire thing seems to be like a bunch of dumb youngsters who slowly start to develop up and study accountability, and so they’ll make numerous errors alongside the way in which. One assumes, since we all know the movie is constructing to a lifelong rivalry between the primary characters, issues do finally shift. However there was very, little or no sense of that within the footage.
Even an prolonged scene in 3D, which 100% added to the expertise, was extra humor-focused than action-focused. The motion appeared to happen simply so the characters might fumble their means by means of it in ways in which have been extra humorous than thrilling.
So yeah, Transformers One won’t be the religious followup to Transformers: The Film we hoped it will be. Or, perhaps it is going to be, as soon as we see extra of it. What was completely clear from the footage screened although is that this Transformers isn’t geared toward 40-year-olds who collected the unique toys and have been shocked to see Optimus Prime die. It’s geared toward their 10-year-old youngsters who might care much less about that. That is in all probability a sensible play in the long term, however at the moment, at CinemaCon, it was a little bit of a shock.
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