This post is part of a longer series examining the god-awfulness of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. If you missed it, the introduction is right here.

When we last left Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a group of African stereotypes got stomped by a robot sometime in the distant past. Today’s installment begins 17,000 years later, with a shot of an industrial hellscape, and another friendly caption:

SHANGHAI, CHINA. 22:14 HRS – TODAY

And what’s happening TODAY at 22:14 HRS? Well, Shanghai is being evacuated following a toxic spill in the financial district. Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, some serious-looking officers are watching the evacuation on some serious-looking monitors, chattering on about Chinese airspace and strike teams.

Then, back to China, where a decrepit ice cream truck putts along a dirt road. A speaker on the truck’s roof announces – I swear – “Any bad robot out there’s better get ready for an ass-whoopin’,” in a voice that sounds like your racist uncle’s Flavor Flav impression. There’s an Autobot insignia on the front of the truck, and a sign on the side that reads – again, I swear this is all true – “[Decepticon insignia] suck my popsicle!”

You hear that sound? That’s the sound of hope dying.

Soldiers move into position, and Optimus Prime’s voiceover fills us in on the backstory: for the last two years, he and the Autobots have joined up with a group of human soldiers to form a “classified strike team called NEST” (which I assume is an acronym for something, although they never bother saying what). We meet a few of the team members: a sleek-looking car that will probably turn into a robot at some point, a group of human soldiers, the aforementioned ice cream truck, and – just to make things confusing – a trio of motorcycles (complete with holographic riders) referred to as “Arcee.”

Fans of the Transformers’ 1980’s incarnation will remember Arcee as the token girl Transformer. They will also remember that there was only one of her. Now, somehow, she is three motorcycles that turn into three robots, but who all have one name. This makes perfect sense, so be quiet and watch the damn movie and stop trying to confuse Michael Bay because you’ll make him mess up.

Also, those soldiers? They were in the first movie, and we’ll be seeing them throughout this one. For the purpose of this review, their names are Lead Guy, Black Guy, Third Guy, and Fourth Guy. Lead Guy explains that the “toxic spill” was just a cover story to get everyone out of the city so they can fight some Decepticons.

Finally, we get what we came for: a truck turning into a motherfucking robot. Unfortunately, the robot is standing so close to the camera that all we really see are unidentifiable bits of truck twisting around and blocking our view of anything else; he starts as a GMC pickup and ends up as an Autobot named Ironhide, but how he got from Point A to Point B remains a mystery. In his robot form, Ironhide looks like a collection of random metal parts welded together into something vaguely man-shaped, not unlike the sculptures that stand in front of office buildings. I wish Tyler Durden was in this movie.

The soldiers gather around some kind of power plant or refinery or something, where a nearby crane transforms into a very large Decepticon and starts smashing shit. There’s an explosion, a weird “BWAAAAAUUUUMP” noise, debris, gunfire, the anguished cries of wounded soldiers. For no reason, some cars go flying across the screen, although we did not see them take off, nor do we see them land. Through all of this, the Decepticon is off-screen. Not in the background. Not obscured by dust or explosions. Just not there. In a couple shots, the soldiers seem to be firing at nothing. When the robot finally reappears, it transforms into some kind of one-wheeled spidery thing and takes off.

Then bunch of shit happens that I cannot make myself care about. Two highlights:

ONE: A Decepticon breaks through a wall and the Arcees pursue him, crashing through the apartment of an elderly Chinese man in the process. Just as the laws of comedy predict, the old man is oblivious to the robo-carnage going on behind him – the robots destroy his home, and he goes right on eating his soup, barely mustering the energy to glance at the giant, burning hole in his wall. If you find this funny, you are my enemy.

TWO: During that same chase, the Flavor Flav ice cream truck returns to drag this movie down into the deepest pit of Hell. The back half of the truck breaks off and turns into a (relatively) squat robot, who does a slapsticky tumble into the side of the building. The front half turns into a similar robot with a similarly offensive jive-talkin’ accent, and he smacks his partner upside the head for his screw-up. If this were a just world, I could say that they never appear again after this scene. Alas, the world is a dark and wicked place, and I will have much more to say about these two in the future.

Eventually, we get back to the giant killer Decepticon. He has somehow found his way to a bridge full of cars, and runs one over with his gargantuan tire. Now, let’s ignore the fact that the whole “evacuation” thing has been completely forgotten, and the fact that some civilians just got killed for the sake of a CGI effect, and focus on the insane hugeness of this fucking tire. Seriously, this thing is like four monster truck tires put together. And we’re just supposed to accept that?

Now, I’m not an expert on cranes. I don’t know what kind of tires they have. In fact, I always thought cranes had treads. So for all I know, some company really does make crane tires that are twenty feet tall and wider than an entire truck. But it’s a lot more likely that the people making this movie have no idea how big things are, and decided that Mister Crane-Bot should be big enough to crush everything in his path, even though there is just no fucking way that much metal could compact itself into anything resembling a piece of functioning construction equipment. But I digress.

At long last, Optimus Prime joins the fight, in the most absurd and unnecessary way possible. No, really: he drives out of a moving plane in truck-form, transforms into a robot as he tumbles through the air, deploys three parachutes, drifts the rest of the way to the ground, cuts the chutes, turns back into a truck, and pursues his one-wheeled foe. The Unicycle of Malevolence, meanwhile, has made his way to a crowded highway, where he is crushing cars, smashing overpasses, and almost certainly killing children by the busload.

And then, somehow, Optimus is climbing around on the monster’s evil head. I had to rewind twice to figure out how he got up there, and I’m still not 100% sure. It doesn’t matter; once he’s up there, Optimus does something that makes the Decepticon crash and die. I have no idea what the fuck just happened, but this sequence seems to be coming to an end, so I don’t care anymore. Optimus and Ironhide approach their vanquished enemy, who manages to croak, “The Fallen shall rise again,” out of his metal mandibles before Optimus blows his face off with a laser or something.

One of the soldiers says, “That doesn’t sound good.” He’s right. We are eight minutes and forty-nine seconds into Revenge of the Fallen, and only pain awaits us.

In our next installment, we finally meet the humans, their pets, and their robot sidekick. We do not, however, meet Mr. Dignity.