Michael Bay’s latest ‘Transformers’ could signal the franchise’s death

MICHAEL Bay’s latest mega- bots monstrosity makes this summer’s other blockbuster misfires look like masterpieces.

Every t i me Michael B a y d i r e c t s a n o t h e r “Transformers” abomination (this is the fifth), the movies die a little. Mark Wahlberg has announced that “The Last Knight” will be his farewell to the Bay franchise. Quoth the actor: “I get my life back.”

Ha! Now Wahlberg knows how sentient film critics feel every time they exit another Bay travesty. “Transformers: The Last Knight” is all kinds of awful. It’s also the worst of the series to date, which is saying something. The year is only half over, but even “Pirates 5”, “Fifty Shades Darker”, “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” and “The Mummy” can’t rob “Transformers 5” of the title as 2017’ s most toxic film byproduct.

Speaking of “King Arthur”, did you know that the battle between Autobots and Decepticons started not at the Hasbro toy store, but back with the knights of the round table?!? Well, Anthony Hopkins sure does. The Oscar winner has been paycheck- persuaded to take on the role Sir Edmund Burton, an

I F YOU can’t build a Trump- sized wall to stop immigrants and undesirables from “polluting” America the Beautiful, just send them out into a wasteland outside of Texas to fend for themselves. That’s the premise driving “The Bad Batch”, a dystopian fable from writer- director Ana Lily Amirpour, whose stunning 2014 debut feature – an Iranian feminist vampire western called “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” – showed promise that this follow-up only partially lives up to.

The filmmaker puts the focus on society’s rejects, each tattooed with a “bad batch” number and then exiled forever from the good batch crowd. The British actress, model and photographer Suki Waterhouse stars as Arlen, a human discard who’s given the heave-ho and told that “no person within the territory beyond this fence is a resident of the United States of America or shall be acknowledged, recognized or governed by the laws and governing bodies therein.” Our President couldn’t have said it better.

That leaves Arlen prey to cannibals, the kind who think nothing of drugging her and hacking off parts of her arm and leg. Jason Momoa plays Miami Man, the group’s leader that Arlen inexplicably crushes on. She escapes from academic who claims that Transformers date back to the Dark Ages, presumably when Bay made his first movie. Sir Edmund even has a robo- butler, Cogman (voiced by Jim Carter, Downton Abbey’s Mr. Carson), a character which rips- off C- 3PO so blatantly that Lucasfilm should sue for plagiarism.

Hopkins knows the evil Megatron ( Frank Welker)

people- eaters’ HQ on a skateboard, with Miami Man’s young daughter Honey ( Jayda Fink) in tow. Still, her prospects look grim until a mute stranger, played by a nearly unrecognizable Jim Carrey, picks her up with a shopping cart.

I am not making this up. And I haven’t even mentioned Keanu Reeves yet. He plays a cult l eader called “the Dream,” who runs Comfort, the community that hides from the cannibals behind shipping containers and offers sanctuary to pilgrims like Arlen and Honey. This charismatic figure comes with his own personal Disco DJ and enjoys protection has plans to destroy Earth. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) has gone rogue. What to do? To stop Megatron, Sir Edmund needs the staff of Merlin ( Stanley Tucci, disguised in the hope that maybe his fans won’t recognize him). Ye olde wizard offers some drunk history on the magic of his staff. And then also, there’s a bot war with the Nazis. Am I making any sense? from heavily armed pregnant women wearing t- shirts proclaiming, “The Dream is Inside Me.”

Amirpour dips into an seemingly bottomless supply of signs and symbols to show us an imploding society all too recognizable as our own, and you’ll marvel at hallucinatory brilliance of her images. Yet The Bad Batch never finds a way to fuse its scattered intentions into a cohesive whole. The f i l mmaker influences range from “El Topo” to “Mad Max: Fury Road,” but she’s lost a little of herself this time. Still, her talent remains indisputable. We can’t wait to see what she does next. ( Stone)

Rolling The script makes even less. It’s a 148-minute marvel of incoherence credited to Art Marcum, Matt Holloway and Ken Nolan, with dialogue that will play best with audiences for whom English is a second language.

But I digress. The plot takes us to the junkyard of Cade Yeager ( Wahlberg, looking contented in the way of an actor who knows this will be his last Transformers). Cade protects virtuous alien Autobots from humans who can’t tell good from bad, probably the same humans who shelled out $3.7 billion worldwide for the first four films in the mega- stupid series. Our hero’s love interest is Vivian Wembley ( Laura Haddock), a British historian who favors spike heels and push- up bras in the grand Bay tradition of objectifying women.

Somehow all this leads t o a c l i mactic, planet- saving battle at Stonehenge ( i s nothing sacred?) i n which we’re pounded with so much clanking noise and mind- crushing action. The director hints t hat No. 5 may be his l ast go at the franchise. Hold the hallelujahs. ( Stone)

Rolling