Whatever your feelings are about Michael Bay’s cash-cow Transformers franchise, there’s a pretty high likelihood that you weren’t advocating for the series’ previous leads, Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox, to win any acting awards for their performances. So, when Mark Wahlberg was announced as the lead for the fourth film, a quasi-reboot called Transformers: Age of Extinction, I was pleasantly surprised by the casting choice. Finally, the Transformers series had landed a lead actor who could demonstrate more than one emotion.
Unfortunately, the IMAX poster for the sequel doesn’t show any sign of improved artistic quality; in fact, Wahlberg is entirely absent from the shot (which you can check out below). None of the cast members get even name-dropped below the title. Instead of a look at any of the actors taking on major and supporting roles in the film, the poster simply shows a Transformer marching through suburbia in the shadow of a massive, robotic craft. Bay was likely going for a haunting image, with the powerful-looking object behind the Transformer dwarfing a quaint home but, personally, the poster just feels lazy to me.
The first full trailer for Transformers: Age of Extinction gave us a look at the same mysterious structure, so there’s nothing particularly exciting about this poster for those who have been keeping abreast of news about the film. Still, the series’ fans will probably be gratified to see that, despite the characters and setting change for Age of Extinction, destruction is still priority number one.
Wahlberg stars as a father and inventor who, after discovering a discarded Transformer years after the horrific Battle of Chicago, becomes drawn into a highly dangerous mission to protect an object of incredible power from the evil Decepticons. Dinobots also feature into the film, which co-stars Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, T.J. Miller, Titus Welliver, Han Geng, Sophia Myles and Li Bingbing.
Transformers: Age of Extinction opens in IMAX 3D on June 27, 2014.
