Netflix Officially Lands Chris Hemsworth's 89% RT Sci-Fi Blockbuster

It's not often you get a forty-year-old franchise that gets rebooted after spending all that time witnessing its two leads beating the seven shades of metal out of each other and trying to make it a more emotional, moving and all-round heartwarming experience, but that was the story of one of the best reviewed films of this class ever made. Not that you'd know it from the box office.

Transformers One is officially coming to Netflix on October 15, giving Chris Hemsworth's animated sci-fi movie another crack at finding the audience it missed in theaters. It deserves one, too, because critics were surprisingly keen on this one. Directed by Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4), Transformers One takes us back to Cybertron, before Optimus Prime and Megatron were sworn enemies. Hemsworth voices Orion Pax, while Brian Tyree Henry (Bullet Train) plays his best friend D-16.

The latest addition to the globally recognized cinematic franchise delves into the untold origin story of how the legendary Optimus Prime and Megatron, the respective leaders of the Autobots and Decepticons, went from brothers-in-arms to sworn enemies. The iconic adversaries are joined by long-running franchise familiars Elita-1, Bumblebee, Starscream, Alpha Trion and Sentinel Prime in the war for Cybertron.

Hemsworth (Thor: Ragnarok) and Henry are joined by Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) as Elita-1, Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele) as B-127/Bumblebee, Jon Hamm (Mad Men) as Sentinel Prime, Laurence Fishburne (The Matrix) as Alpha Trion, and Steve Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire) as Starscream.

How Good Is 'Transformers One'?

Pretty damn good, at least according to the critics. Transformers One holds an 89% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes and is Certified Fresh, putting it comfortably among the best-reviewed movies in a franchise that has been blowing up giant robots on the big screen since 2007. Audiences who actually saw it liked it even more, but getting them into theaters was the problem. Transformers One made around $129 million worldwide, which isn't much for a series that once had movies routinely sailing past $1 billion. It didn't help that animation may have made this look like one for younger kids when the story is really about the friendship between Optimus and Megatron falling apart. That's where Netflix could help.

Transformers One begins streaming on Netflix on October 15.