The appearance of familiar robots may be different, but Michael Bay and company have made it exceedingly clear that this is no reboot.  After three consecutive movies in which entire cities were collateral damage during incoherent Transformer battles, humanity has finally had enough of these damn warring aliens.  So when Age of Extinction picks up, the Autobots are actually robots in disguise, hiding out in the middle of nowhere.

When Optimus Prime is purchased by an aspiring inventor in rural Texas, though, it's not long before he pops up on the government's radar.  That's good and bad, because humans meddling with Transformer technology has created a new kind of threat to Earth, one that presumably involves many, many explosions.

So Optimus, once again voiced by Peter Cullen, must reassemble his Autobot bros and do robo-wrassling from Texas all the way to China, where the Transformers movies aren't just big, they're huge.

These images, courtesy of Empire, have Optimus twirling a sword in Texas and Bumblebee aiming a giant arm cannon in China.  The first is by far the best, because it has Optimus Prime going full-cliche, down on his knees, distraught, looking to the heavens and probably screaming "NOOOOOOO!"

Bumblebee previously held a position of some distinction among the Autobots, all of whom have only the whiff of personality or character.  He may have lost that position in Transformers: Age of Extinction, because his BFF Sam Witwicky is no longer involved in these destructive shenanigans.  Having fulfilled his contractual obligation on the last movie, Shia LaBeouf is out, as are the other familiar humans.

Stepping in is Mark Wahlberg playing the inventor, Cade Yager.  He's a single dad just trying to raise his suspiciously beautiful daughter Tessa, played by Nicola Peltz, but they both end up pulled into an adventure alongside Tessa's racecar-driving boyfriend, played by Jack Reynor.

It's standard for a Transformers movie to have unstoppably great actors collecting paychecks, from Jon Voight to Frances McDormand.  This time, it's Stanley Tucci and Titus Welliver, along with T.J. Miller, Kelsey Grammer, and Sophia Myles also joining in.

Transformers: Age of Extinction brings the bombast in 2D, 3D, and IMAX 3D this June 27th.