Film Preview: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Poster

Additional posters can be found below.

Trailer Link

Release Date:

June 27, 2014

Synopsis:

From IMDb: “An automobile mechanic and his daughter make a discovery that brings down the Autobots and Decepticons – and a paranoid government official – on them.”

Poster: B / C- / C / C (2) / C+ / D / C+ / C- / B- / B / B / C (4) / B- (3)

Review: (#1-#6) The first is a fitting teaser while the second is an ill-fitting one. The third, fourth and fifth are akin to character posters, though the latter two are really the only ones that qualify for the designation. None of them are that electrifying. The sixth tries to follow a trend of designs going for the quasi-futuristic political warning posters, but fails to create a sense of urgency or inventiveness.

(#7-#11) I assume poster seven is a character that won’t appear in advertising in the U.S. as she hasn’t yet. What she has to do with the story isn’t clear. Not surprisingly, hers isn’t an American poster. The eighth and ninth posters are to show how the coming invasion will dwarf our population, but they aren’t particularly frightening. The tenth design is lame, but modestly clever marketing. Trying to make the film seem cool with Optimus Prime wielding a sword and riding a Transformer-T-Rex. The eleventh is a better overall sales tool, showing off good portion of the cast and making it feel like a finalized product.

(#12-#19) Twelve is on the same level as the preceding design, so it works just about as well. The next four borrow an overused quasi-futuristic Apartheid-type warning. While this was done effectively in recent memory (X-Men: Days of Future Past and District 12), these aren’t quite as interesting and definitely not as effective. The final three designs are thematically keyed to prior English-language efforts translated to the appropriate territory. They have no distinctiveness of their own.

Trailer: D / C

Review: If you ever wondered what Michael Bay could do with a story set in Earth’s future? It looks suspiciously like every other Transformers movie he’s ever made. There are some hints that this is the future, but everything looks so modern that it doesn’t seem like we’ve spent any time away from the titular creatures. Yet, here we are. More of the same. Even without Shia Labeouf, this looks unbelievably bland.

(#2) The more things change, the more they stay the same. There isn’t anything terribly new in this trailer, a few extra scenes that are supposed to look cool, but if Jump the Shark were still around, the T-Rex Transformer would be jumping it.