'Transformers One' review: It's shockingly enjoyable

Hold on to your Energon — “Transformers One,” the newest entry in the Hasbro-Paramount franchise, is actually good.

It’s hard to overstate what a shocker that is. The series that began with 2007’s “Transformers” — a fun-loving blockbuster inspired by a line of Hasbro figurines — quickly devolved into pandering, faux-patriotic dreck full of Navy SEALs and small-town dads. Things improved slightly after director Michael Bay shifted to a producer’s chair in 2018, but there was little reason to expect “Transformers One”— the eighth installment and the first fully animated one — to be anything more than mediocre.

Instead, it’s an entertaining, even rousing story that explains the origins of two legendary Transformers, the noble Optimus Prime and his power-mad nemesis Megatron. They’re born, if that’s the right word for robots, as Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), both lowly miners who harvest Energon in the bowels of the planet Cybertron. Orion is the ambitious dreamer, D-16 the loyal company man, but their friendship runs deep: “I got your back,” they say, often with a brotherly fist clank.

This won’t be a spoiler: It turns out Cybertron’s beloved leader, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), is really a conniving dictator running an Orwellian dystopia. (His search for the Matrix of Leadership, a lost relic with mythical powers, keeps receding into the future.) Once our heroes learn the truth, they’ll need to convince the world — not easy when their only compatriots are a snippy Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and the hyperactive B-12 (Keegan-Michael Key). Ah, but they have the wisdom of Alpha Trion, an ancient warrior with the voice of Laurence Fishburne, to guide them.

“Transformers One” is built with spare parts from “Black Panther,” “Star Wars” and other pop epics, but the screenplay (by three Marvel veterans) assembles them into a coherent whole. Most convincing is the emotional arc of D-16, whose feelings of betrayal (“My whole life was a lie!”) curdle into a murderous rage. Director Josh Cooley (“Toy Story 4”) keeps the action brisk and enlivens the landscape with eye-catching touches like trains that soar on improvised tracks and glaciers that form with tsunami-like speed.

Once friends, now enemies — it’s a story we’ll see in three different movies this year. First with robots, then in November with the witches of “Wicked” and again in December with the leonine brothers of “Mufasa: The Lion King.” Where else are we seeing this story? Maybe all around us these days? Silly as it sounds, “Transformers One” can feel almost metaphorical.

“You are one,” Alpha Trion thunders to a group of hopeful robots. “We all are one.”

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com@raferguzman