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

Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry star in the animated prequel to the popular franchise, exploring the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron.

Movie origin stories finally reach their nadir this week with “Transformers One,” the super-violent, toy-selling vehicle that tells the tale of how Optimus Prime and Megatron went from besties to foes.

"Transformers One" is a prequel origin story that features the voices of Chris Hemsworth, Bryan Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson and Keegan-Michael Key.

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.

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

"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,

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,