DVD review: Transformers: Age of Extinction, directed by Michael Bay

The cinematic equivalent of sugar-loaded breakfast cereal in that you sort of know it's not that good for you but something just keeps you coming back for more. Also once you reach a certain age, you're supposed to realise there are far better options available out there.

The buzz comes from the continuous stream of action scenes and all manner of mechanised monsters that spring to life and into battle. Leave it to the experts to explain who or what they all are. Suffice to say that the planet is in peril and Mark Wahlberg is on hand to add the down-home human connection.

Being a Michael Bay production it's loud and very proud of being so, never letting you settle down and concentrate on what is happening, who is who, and where these things keep popping up from.

Setting itself up some five years after the invasion featured in Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), the bad guys are hunting down good old Optimus Prime, who's turned himself into a truck and is hiding in a barn while Wahlberg drinks brewskies and tinkers with his toys.

Bay then takes us crash bang wallop around the world, maximising his audiences with cameos from Hong Kong and the mainland, among other places, and from people specifically known in those markets, too, such as boxing star Zou Shiming.

It's clever, clever stuff, as are the product placements that drag your attention away from the fact that nothing makes much sense. So jam-packed with distractions is Transformers: Age of Extinction that it can take an hour or so afterwards to work out what exactly has just happened.

What you do know, though, is that there'll be more in the series - what with the monumental mounds of cash the franchise continues to collect. It might have the emotional depth of a video game but its market is beyond measure.

Extras: Evolution Within Extinction, Just Another Giant Effin' Movie, A Spark of Design, T.J. Miller - Farm Hippie, KRE-O Transformers - Take Us Through the Movies, The Angry Birds Transformers - Origin Story featurettes; trailers