Transformers One Performs Underwhelmingly at Box Office: A Review

Spoilers Ahead!

Despite having a stacked cast, Transformers One has fallen short monetarily by only grossing $25 million during opening week. Regardless, Transformers One is a specialty that excels at everything, from the character development to the fighting scenes, and even the plot. This earned them a massive win with a 7.9 on IMDb, an 88% on rotten tomatoes, and even a 98% amongst critics. 

The end scenes in particular leave you in a crisis: on one hand, you hate that the Megatron turns against Optimus, but on the other you understand why he does it, considering how Sentinel Prime was his tipping point. This might have been the message of the movie because we see all the evil he does throughout the movie, yet when he turns into a villain we have this sympathy for him. However, does it justify what he did?

Transformers One is a movie that shows the backstory of the former “brothers in arms” Optimus Prime and Megatron (D-16). The division starts when they start clashing against each other due to an attempt made by Optimus to stop D-16 from executing Sentinel Prime for his corruption. In the end, Megatron ends up getting exiled, with Megatron promising that the rivalry is not over. Megatron then leaves the planet with his Decepticons with what we can only assume was the start of the war of Cybertron between the factions.

The movie thrived because it took place on Cybertron 300 million years before their war reached Earth. The fact that there was not any human interference was great for one simple reason: we finally got to focus on the Transformers themselves and since they didn’t have human characters, the writers focused more on their story and the characters. 

The Micheal Bay movie fell short when it came to humor. The movie played some scenes for laughs, but they had no significance to the story. This continued throughout the Transformer film and got progressively worse. Useless scenes like this took away from the movie and left a bad impression on the audience.

Making the movie animated was another factor that made it so great because it gives off a more Transformers vibe than the usual live-action movies. It also gave room for Josh Cooley to do what he does best, which is making action-packed scenes like he did for his previous movies “Toy Story 4” and “Inside Out.” The animated side also encouraged a reinvention for the franchise in the hopes that the following films are as good as this one. The live-action movies were getting horrible critics scores, so changing the style could help bring the fans back and give life to the film.

I went into this movie thinking it would be good and it did not disappoint, everything about this movie was a spectacle to watch and as a Transformers fan, I have hope that the franchise will continue in this direction. There were some parts that missed the mark for me, but it makes up for it with the well-crafted story. This was undoubtedly the best of the franchise and if you are a fan of action-packed films, this is for you.