Staggering out of the latest skull-splinteringly insensitive new Transformers film, I wondered if the only way to settle the future of cinema is to set up Michael Bay, its director, with James Cameron in a fistfight. A film about such an encounter, however, could wind up looking like techno-futurist porn, of a kind that JG Ballard might have found too upsetting to consider. Perhaps Michael Bay should just get a room – with himself. He should check into the nearest Travelodge, with a set of 4x6 laminates of his new film's various gigantic toys, hardware, weaponry and black SUVs – and a bottle of baby oil. Well, this is another overlong and over-the-top action extravaganza from Bay about the cars that turn into robots. Stanley Tucci belatedly and unexpectedly emerges as its rather droll comic hero. It is the fourth film in the franchise, but many recurring stars have gone awol. Megan Fox was dropped after the second, for comparing the director to Adolf Hitler; troubled actor Shia LaBeouf has quit and British underwear model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley has evidently not been invited back to develop the role she essayed in the previous, elliptically named film, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Dependable action lead Mark Wahlberg is now in the hot seat, playing an eccentric inventor. He's Cade, an adorable widower who grumpily objects to his teen daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz), dating local boy racer Shane (Jack Reynor). Cade buys a manky old truck and attempts to fix it up in his barn – and the truck transforms into something very special! This part of the movie is surely a tribute to Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Again, the good Transformers (Autobots) are ranged against the bad Transformers (Decepticons), but now a sinister black-ops security chief called Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) seeks to advance a Decepticon plot under the cover of gung ho, pro-human activism and by manipulating a sub-Steve Jobs corporate innovator played by Tucci. It's all very wearing and very ridiculous – with the occasional glimmer of humour.
