Transformers: Rise of the Beasts review

The hapless humans do the best they can to lift this supremely dumb seventh instalment in the alien robot series

It's the early 1990s. A new subspecies of Transformer – the part-animal, part-robot Maximals – joins forces with Optimus Prime and his Autobots to fight against a ruthless foe, the Terrorcons, who are in the service of Unicron, a planet-munching monster deity. We know all this because every 10 minutes or so, the imbecilic bombast of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts grinds to a halt so that one or more of the characters can explain the story to us.

You could argue that any film that requires this much leaden exposition to nail down its plot points really shouldn't be trusted with heavy machinery. But then, smashing stuff up was always the point of the metal-for-brains Transformers series, the dumbest and noisiest of all the billion-dollar movie franchises. And the latest instalment certainly delivers on needless destruction and world-class stupidity. Plus points include a punchy soundtrack of 90s hip-hop, and Anthony Ramos and Dominique Fishback, heroically holding their own as the hapless humans roped into the Transformers’ thunderous mess.