Leave it to the medium of animation to breathe new life into an intellectual property that has lost relevance with each big-screen sequel. Serving as a prequel to the entire narrative universe of an alien race of metallic humanoids with the ability to transform into vehicles, “Transformers One” traces the origins of the conflict between the benevolent Autobots and the villainous Decepticons before the two groups even existed.

The Transformers films, released in 2007 and mostly directed by Michael Bay, are better described as hybrids than live-action films, given the number of digitally created characters, environments and effects that were designed for them, with varying degrees of success. But this all-animated feature from Oscar-winning director Josh Cooley (“Toy Story 4”) presents an elegantly designed world of hard and shiny surfaces that seems designed to exist in a fantasy realm separate from flesh-and-blood humans.

The intimate bromance between Orion Pax (voice: Chris Hemsworth) – a daring idealist – and D-16 (Brian Tyree Henry), the more cautious and skeptical of the two – made up of fist bumps that express genuine camaraderie and other exchanges of muscular tenderness, represents the emotional core of the saga. The friends mine for Energon, the substance that powers their planet, while the charismatic leader Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm) searches for the Matrix of Leadership, an ancient artifact that would make Energon mining unnecessary altogether.

Orion Pax and D-16 were born without the ability to transform, which ultimately determines which robotic beings are relegated to manual labor jobs. They have little hope of ever being more than invisible cogs in the machine. Until they break the rules and go in search of the Matrix of Leadership. No one expects a class-conscious interpretation from a Transformers film, one that asks why those in power exploit the masses who have no way to climb the socioeconomic ladder. But that’s exactly what’s baked into the film’s mechanical heart. (It turns out it was actually a deep ideological divide that led to Optimus Prime and Megatron becoming enemies.)

This installment definitely benefits from the low expectations set by its predecessors, but that doesn’t change the fact that the writing trio – Andrew Barrer, Gabriel Ferrari and Eric Pearson – craft a consistently humorous script full of witty quips and banter that mostly land. At times, there are even a few slightly daring choices that seem bold for a release aimed primarily at a young audience. Yet what grounds the story amid the smorgasbord of sci-fi terms and lore is the convincingly intense bond these male protagonists have built. There’s a certain seriousness to their relationship that makes the heartache of their eventual separation feel deserved.

Visually, Transformers One works on the believability of its textures: 3DCG animation is perhaps the most appropriate technique for these characters. That’s not to take away from the look of the original hand-drawn cartoon series from the 1980s, but the Transformers definitely seem more tangible here.

Without going into their confusing physiology, these metal-wrought structures are essentially walking reflective objects, meaning artists must consider how light hits their bodies, how they react to blunt force trauma, or to collisions with other structures made of the same material during the many high-speed action sequences aboard a train or during a thrilling race.

Orion Pax’s crew of miners with higher ambitions also includes the stern Elita-1 (Scarlett Johansson) and the cheerful B-127 (Keegan-Michael Key). The latter delivers some of the funniest one-liners as the writers poke fun at his extreme loneliness while working in isolation and the imaginary friends he’s built to cope. The four-person team’s designs match the brutalist backgrounds, which look like inverted skyscrapers, and contrast with the rocky, dystopian landscapes seen later in their ordeal. While these stylistic choices aren’t often unique, they’re at least coherent.

Compared to other attempts to keep a franchise alive, Transformers One is one of the year’s most positive surprises. The premise takes on an almost radical biblical dimension as the inhabitants of the planet Cybertron realize that their lives have been dictated by a false prophet. Cooley’s film remains a mainstream product, anchored in the “build it as we make it” mythology of these sentient machines, but it pays an attention to its characters’ motivations and desires that is absent from many Hollywood store-bought films. Animation can be a transformative, liberating force, even for stories that have been told ad nauseam.