Fittingly, the Transformers franchise has undergone several metamorphoses since the animated television series debuted 40 years ago, with the corresponding The Transformers: The Movie being released in 1986. 

After five Michael Bay-directed live-action movies, a Bumblebee spin-off and a standalone sequel last year, the alien-robot hybrids return to the big screen in animated form with Transformers One. 

Coming over from the world of Pixar, Toy Story 4 director Josh Cooley brings a more playful touch to this origin story that doesn’t skimp on the fast-paced action or platitude-laden speechifying. It’s the kind of reboot that succeeds at making a case for a kid-friendly Paramount+ series based around these characters, even if it doesn’t make for the most satisfying film on its own terms.

On their home planet of Cybertron, robot friends Orion Pax (Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) spend their days trading wisecracks while mining for raw material known as Energon. In hopes of working their way up from the mines, they make a showing for themselves in the Iacon 5000 race and catch the attention of their intrepid leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm). Desperate to locate the coveted Matrix of Leadership so they can transform like their Prime heroes, Orion and D-16 team up with fellow robots B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key) and Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) to venture to Cybertron’s surface. But when they arrive, they uncover secrets that will forever change the fate of their planet.

Though their screenplay follows the formulaic beats we’d expect from a scrappy superhero saga, writing trio Eric Pearson, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari punch things up with well-dispersed beats of humor. 

While it’s not as consistently funny or visually inventive as 2014’s The Lego Movie, Transformers One does possess a similar sense of play that coheres nicely with both movies’ origins in the toy world. The quartet of protagonists don’t gain the ability to “transform” until about halfway through the story, so there’s a more palpable spirit of reinvention when they gain their powers. Once that moment occurs, there’s a clear delineation of motivations between the altruistic Orion Pax and absolutist D-16 that fracture their friendship and set their courses for the rest of the narrative.

Even for a theatrical animated spectacle, Transformers One has a particularly stacked ensemble voice cast that also includes veterans like Steve Buscemi and Laurence Fishburne. Henry, who’s also lent terrific voicework to the ongoing Spider-Verse series, is the standout here as a character whose disillusionment is believably transformed into rage and thirst for revenge. Hemsworth channels similar notes of lovable oafishness that his MCU co-star Chris Pratt played for his lead role in The Lego Movie — that is, until Orion Pax completes his evolution to Platitudenus Prime in the last 20 minutes or so. Johansson and Key bring the no-nonsense resolve and comic relief chops, respectively, that are very much in their wheelhouses.

Down the stretch, Transformers One suffers from the same symptoms that have befallen many a prequel before it, where the third act moves too quickly in order for everything to click into place for the next chapter. Formative events fly by like fighter jets zipping through the sky and voice-overs are backed by urgent crescendos from the music score to underline their importance. 

But the ride up to that point is colorful and exciting enough for those who don’t have much experience with the world of Transformers to feel like they joined in at just the right time. 

Transformers One doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but given this franchise’s popularity and longevity, perhaps it doesn’t have to.

More new movies coming this weekend

• Coming to theaters is Never Let Go, a survival horror film starring Halle Berry and Percy Daggs IV, concerning a family that has been haunted by an evil spirit for years, whose safety and surroundings come into question when one of the children questions if the evil is real.
• Also playing in theaters is The Substance, a body horror movie starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley about a fading celebrity who decides to use a black-market drug, a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.
• Premiering on Netflix is His Three Daughters, a family drama starring Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as a trio of estranged sisters who come back together to care for their ailing father in his New York apartment.