Paramount has released a new Transformers: The Last Knight trailer. Once again directed by Michael Bay, the film expands the mythology of the Transformers universe by introducing a medieval-centric backstory, with Mark Wahlberg reprising his lead role from Transformers: Age of Extinction. The story, which will take the series into the past as well as the present, features new and old characters plus the many, many explosions we've come to expect from this franchise.

Honestly, this trailer just feels exhausting. We're now five films into this franchise, and there's still not really a single character to care about. Optimus Prime is going all Dom Torreto on his buddies and playing for the other team, but does it really matter? The King Arthur stuff is kind of interesting I guess, but knowing the film's gonna have a bloated runtime like all the other Transformers movies, it's hard to even get excited by that.

Five films in we've reached the point where if you like the Transformers movies, you'll probably like the new one. And if you don't, there doesn't seem to be any hope of conversion. On the one hand it's understandable that Bay wants to keep making these movies—he's given the biggest budgets imaginable and basically told by the studio "go play"—but it's also a bummer that the franchise is so one-note. I'm still waiting for the charm and heart of that first Transformers movie to return.

Check out the Transformers: The Last Knight trailer below and let us know what you think. Does The Last Knight offer reason to think we're in for something different? The film opens June 23rd and also stars Laura Haddock, Stanley Tucci, Jerrod Carmichael, John Goodman, John Turturro, Josh Duhamel, Isabela Moner, Gil Birmingham, and Jean Dujardin.

Here’s the official synopsis for Transformers: The Last Knight:

The Last Knight shatters the core myths of the Transformers franchise, and redefines what it means to be a hero. Humans and Transformers are at war, Optimus Prime is gone. The key to saving our future lies buried in the secrets of the past, in the hidden history of Transformers on Earth. Saving our world falls upon the shoulders of an unlikely alliance: Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg); Bumblebee; an English Lord (Sir Anthony Hopkins); and an Oxford Professor (Laura Haddock).

For more on Transformers: The Last Knight, click on the links below:

 

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Image via Paramount Pictures