So, what were you expecting from the first footage look at Transformers: Age Of Extinction? Long stretches of Brechtian angst or silent contemplation of raindrops? Of course not! And the Super Bowl spot for the new slab of Bayhem features the usual: explosions, more explosions and all the robo-shots that ILM’s hardworking team have had time to to produce.
Based on this very brief look, it’s certainly a Transformers film: robots slice through cars, robots smash buildings, Optimus Prime appears to have yet another Very Bad Day and the humans (including Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz and Jack Reynor) scream, run around being scared and reacting to the techno-madness around them.
It’s all sort of been-there-done-that-got-the-robo-shirt, until what looks like Swoop the Dinobot (he’s a Pteradon) shows up and then we cut to the really fun bit. There's Optimus riding a Dino who looks very much like Grimlock, if he was a Bay-style ‘roided out, dragon-flavoured version of himself. And suddenly we feel 6 again.
Bay’s films typically make for good trailers – lots of eye candy – so we’ll have to wait and see if the whole Age Of Extinction can banish bad memories of Revenge Of The Fallen in particular. This new effort is out on July 10.[[Poll1105]]