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There’s no other way of putting it: Transformers: Dark of the Moon is stupid, loud and pointless. If that sounds like a simple-minded critique, it’s because the movie deserves no better. This is the most mind-numbing action movie since, well, the last two Transformers movies and you’d be wise not to spend your money on it. If it’s mindless entertainment you seek, I believe Fast Five, Thor and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides are still playing. Those at least are mindless without being offensive, and they’re also quite fun. When it comes to Transformers, though, we should all make a collective effort not to throw any more money at it. It’d be nice if this franchise simply died out.

What’s baffling is the movie starts out well enough. During a semi-intriguing prologue, we learn the United States’ mission to the moon wasn’t about discovery or even about beating the Russians to the punch. It was about uncovering the truth behind an unidentified spacecraft that NASA detected eight years earlier. The spacecraft came from Cybertron, the home planet of the Autobots and the Decepticons, who together make up the mechanized race called The Transformers. Piloted by Sentinel Prime (voiced by Leonard Nimoy), the spacecraft, known as the Ark, was transporting pillars that could eventually end the war between the Autobots and Decepticons, allowing the Autobots to claim victory.

In present day, a few years after the last major Transformers battle on Earth, Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) and his team of Autobots have formed an alliance with the U.S. government in an effort to prevent mankind from destroying themselves. One mission takes them to Russia, where Optimus battles with the snake-like Decepticon known as Shockwave and finds an energy cell from the Ark, which he believes could be used to revive Sentinel and restore Cybertron to working order. Without going too far into the dull specifics of the convoluted plot, this is all a setup by the Decepticons to destroy the Autobots and rebuild Cybertron on Earth, with the intention of using humans as slave labor.

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