"As befits a franchise about shape-shifting robots, 'Transformers' has had more alternate incarnations than anyone cares to remember," said Laura Stott in The Sun. "And in the 40th year since the original 1980s cartoon, we have yet another version."
This one, happily, is "pretty entertaining" – and you don't need to have seen any of the other films to make sense of it.
An animated origins story, it takes us back to the days when Optimus Prime and Megatron – who will become sworn enemies – were "lowly" mining bots on the planet Cybertron, as well as the best of pals. Then a joyride gets them banished to "scrapheap-sifting duties", and they discover that their planet's idolised leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) is a crook – prompting a rebellion. The film does often feel like it's preparing "to flog you some more plastic stuff this Christmas", but it's "pacey" good fun.
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