No director symbolises the era of the multiplex blockbuster movie more than Michael Bay. By the way, that’s not a compliment.

2014’s ‘Transformers : Age of Extinction’ sees him directing the 4th Transformers movie, a form of a reboot from the first three in the sense that the story moves away Shia LaBeouf and Josh Duhamel. Instead we find Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, a gifted technology inventor who stumbles upon an autobot. The auto bots, (the robotic good guys) are on the run after their alliance with humanity was ceased after a battle in Chicago left a trail of dead.

Surrounding Wahlberg in this mess is Kelsey Grammer, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Titus Welliver and Stanley Tucci. And it’s safe to say that this is no-ones best work.

Wahlberg was allegedly paid $17m for this film, and I can only assume that the money was the sole motivation for someone who had only 4 years earlier starred in the fantastic The Fighter.

There is a more sinister edge to this film compared to the rest of the seres, with  of autobot’s being chased down being oddly uncomfortable. However, don’t read that as any level of achievement, only something noticed whilst struggling through this.

The storyline is ludicrous, the acting is shoddy and it lacks any charm or humour that some of the earlier films had.

This is a further example of Bay’s ability to create 2 hours of explosions, car chases, product placement and CGI that amounts to nothing and yet makes an incredible amount of money at the box office. Seriously, it made $1.1 billion.

It’s lazy, dialled in nonsense and a perfect example of what is wrong with Hollywood. The fact it made so much money should be concerning to us all.