Freeze Frame: “Transformers: The Last Knight”

Just how does one transform $260 million into something pretty much worthless? Just ask director Michael Bay, who spent all that dough on the latest Hasbro Toys come to life extravaganza, “Transformers: The Last Knight.” It’s not that you can’t see where the money was spent. After all, the movie provides two hours and forty-eight minutes of special effects overkill that undoubtedly employed a lot of computer animators. But the end result is a mind-numbing mix of robot battles, insipid dialogue and borderline racist and misogynistic hokum that feels totally out of step with the times.

Mark Wahlberg is back as inventor Cade Yeager, who, as it turns out, is the chosen one in an epic battle between Earth’s protectors and the Transformers’ home pseudo-planet. By the time the final conflict comes around, you might be wishing for both to blow up.

The movie’s only saving grace is a slumming Sir Anthony Hopkins who mostly manages to retain his dignity as he collects his check.

The fifth “Transformers” installment isn’t the worst movie ever made, but it may be the biggest waste of money.

Also opening this week, “Ripped” is a stoner sci-fi comedy starring Faizon Love about two friends who smoke some super secret CIA weed in the 80s and wake up in the present day. “My Entire High School is Sinking Into the Sea” is an animated satire featuring voice work from Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Maya Rudolph and Susan Sarandon. “Beatriz at Dinner” is a comic drama set at a dinner party given by an immigrant health care worker where she clashes with a billionaire. Salma Hayek and John Lithgow star. “The Exception,” also known as “The Kaiser’s Last Kiss,” is a WWII thriller about a German solider investigating exiled Kaiser Wilhelm in The Netherlands. Christopher Plummer stars.

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