A Giant Leap - Backwards: 'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' Trailer HD

So, Michael Bay has -incredibly - surpassed himself.

With the blessing of the "Overlord of Summer Movies", aka Mr. Spielberg, Bay has managed to make a film that's longer (slightly), louder, more self-indulgent and less tolerable than either of its two predecessors. This latest exercise in "bland blockbusterism" opens with a scene that's almost a direct lift from "Star Wars" (Spielberg paying homage to his buddy George Lucas?) and segues to a tedious re-enactment of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing.

Things go downhill rapidly from there.

its not that this instalment has no worthy moments, its just that they seem to happen almost by accident, so few and far between they are. "Star boy" Shia LaBeouf is pretty much doing this in sleepwalk mode and his new love interest (following the ungracious exit of Megan Fox, like we cared), Rosie Huntington-Whitely offers little other than collagen-fed pouting and lots of leg.

In order to shore up the star wattage, Bay & 'Berg have called in a kind of Hollywood Rogue's Gallery of "role-whores" (we're on a roll with the coined terms today), including two Johns, Malkovich and Turturro, and "it guy" Ken Jeong, who's reduced to reprising his "Hangover" movie persona for an office setting. Frances McDormand (as a CIA officer), alongside Leonard Nimoy and Hugo Weaving as the voices of Sentinel Prime and Megatron respectively, try their best to make us believe that there's actually something going on here behind the city-block set construction and product placements (the latter including Mercedes sharing screen time with Chevy), but to no avail.

Transformers simply is the kind of shamelessly mindless and tasteless drivel that gave summer blockbusters a bad name in the first place.

Truthfully, its audiences are pretty much assured but I for one am happy to be able to put a few critical bullets in the monstrous Hollywood exo-skeleton. Save time and money, and wait for the summer to unfold a little more.