The camera is constantly swiveling and the violence — assault-weapon lasers, booming cannons, light torture, martial arts crunching moves, beating a rival with their own amputated limb and

There are, happily, no human characters in this film. What a smart move this is for “Transformers One.” The terrific animation makes that possible for this reboot (and, I hope, for the sequels that soon will follow.

As origin stories go, director Josh Cooley's breezy, action-packed genesis tale reintroduces Optimus Prime, Megatron and the rest of the Transformers gang, without any pesky humans hanging around the edges of the frame to muck things up.

"It's a great kind of tragic arc–a Shakespearian arc–and I knew if we could sell that friendship in the beginning, it would [payoff for audiences] knowing that it's not gonna last." But seeing where these characters end up is just the bottom end of the sandwich,

Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johansson reunite. Not as Thor and Black Widow, but as a truck and a motorcycle in "Transformers One."

Friendship break-ups are a tried-and-tested theme in the world’s most popular stories. There’s X-Men’s Professor X and Magneto, fighting over the best way to protect the discriminated mutants. Over at Westeros,