Transformers One (2024) review

In their "younger years," lowly mining robots Orion Pax (voiced by Chris Hemsworth) and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry) from the planet Cybertron were the best of friends: Orion forces D-16 to participate in the Iacon 5000 race, they meet cruel ruler Sentinel (Jon Hamm), get thrown in the trash, look for a powerful device called the Matrix of Leadership, are granted the power to "transform" by wizened Alpha Trion (Laurence Fishburne) ... and then become sworn enemies.  The budget for this numbingly awful cash-grab was somewhere between $75 and 147 million (it didn't fare so well at the box office) and yet it looks no better than a current PlayStation game, the garbled "origin story" is terribly written, and the absence of human characters seems to diminish whatever appeal it could have had.  Considering I'm writing this on November 6, a dark day for the "United States" and the world in general, this line from Sentinel sounds even more ominous: "The truth is what I make it."  Of course, in the movie he loses and justice prevails, but in reality Evil (with a capital E) won easily....