Do yourself a favor and stay the heck away from "Transformers: Age of Extinction" this weekend.

In what continues to be the most baffling success story in Hollywood, the fourth installment of director Michael Bay's loud, ugly "Transformers" franchise is expected to net around $100 million at the domestic box office in its first three days.

That's a ridiculous number for a nearly three-hour follow-up to some of the lousiest blockbusters in the past decade.

Someone please explain the appeal. I'm a superhero movie apologist ("Amazing Spider-man 2" wasn't the worst), and I'm even holding out hope for the Michael Bay-produced "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," because, well... I actually have no idea why I should expect anything more than the garbage we've come to see from these types of long-dormant franchise reboots.

I guess you can credit Bay for dumping PR nightmare Shia LeBouf and casting the sporadically engaging Mark Walhberg for "Transformers 4." And, yes, there is a certain appeal in seeing giant robots slash and dash on the big screen. Last year's far-superior "Pacific Rim" proved that the B-movie premise can still work in an effects-laden modern blockbuster.

It's just that Bay has no idea how to make "Transformers" a pleasurable moviegoing experience. The scripts for these movies, especially the last two entries, are loaded with nonsensical human characters spouting incoherent one-liners that only tangentially interact with the main storyline (Usually: "Robots fight robots for control of the planet").

Bay is also kind of a racist (see the bickering robots in "Revenge of the Fallen") and definitely a misogynist (see every over-sexualized, vacant and/or nagging female character in any of his movies). Even his so-called "Transformers" palette-cleanser, last year's true crime opus "Pain & Gain," doesn't understand the difference between satire and fetishizing a criminal lifestyle.

I've talked to plenty of people who defend these movies. My own wife claims to enjoy them, saying that, quote: "They're loud and fun. It's enjoyable like a guilty pleasure reality show."

Twelve years together and I still don't understand what she's thinking.

People like what they like, I suppose, and I can sort of understand why "Transformers," on the surface anyway, exists to be the bombastic, check-your-brain-at-the door fun that allows people to escape their mundane, giant robot-less lives.

For the record, I love those kinds of movies. "Pacific Rim" is one. Even some of Bay's earlier movies, like "Armageddon" or "The Rock" provide a jolt of cathartic fake violence that is inexplicably entertaining (millions of people die onscreen in "Armageddon," and it's FUN!).

"Transformers," though, makes no effort to be fun, unless crashing billions of pieces of CGI metal together is the sole qualification for fun onscreen these days. At least back when Will Smith ruled the summer box office, the CGI was coupled with one-liners that actually made sense. The great John Malkovich appears in the third "Transformers" movie in a comedic role, and I don't understand how any of his dialogue actually pertains to the movie in which it's contained.

If you like "Transformers," I promise I won't hold it against you. Just don't act surprised that movie studios only spend money on sequels and established franchises.

Paramount, which distributes "Transformers," has the following movies on its schedule: "Star Trek 3," "G.I. Joe 3," "Mission: Impossible 5," "Paranormal Activity 5," a new "Terminator," and sequels to "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" and "Hot Tub Time Machine." Oh, and at least two more "Transformers."

I'll probably enjoy some of those sequels, but the cost to us moviegoers will be much more than whatever ridiculous rate Regal Cinemas will charge for its fake-IMAX, dimly-lit 3D presentations.

With that knowledge, would it kill you to skip "Transformers" on opening weekend? The giant robots will eventually show up at the discount theater and on DVD. They will still clang and clash and inexplicably turn into robotic dinosaurs. And there will still be extreme close-ups of shapely lady parts.

If "Transformers" opens with less than $100 million this weekend, I'll consider that a slight victory for humanity.

Tyler Wilson can be reached at [email protected].