I used to have one unshakable tenet of faith: Robots fighting are cool. It wasn’t a complex belief, but that was always its strength: its elegance. Robots fighting crime (see: Robocop)? Yes! Gigantic robots fighting other gigantic robots (see: anime)? Of course! Not even weepy teenage melodrama can obscure the fact that robots fighting automatically affords a hefty withdrawal from the awesome bank.

Then came Terminator: Salvation, a movie that somehow managed to squander the robot-heavy momentum in its first act with a series of predictable plot turns and often completely robotless fighting. The real tragedy is how easily the mistake could have been fixed. Observe as a quick rewrite punches up the script many fold.

Sam Worthington: “Blah blah blah heart blah blah blah second chances.”

SW’s Love Interest: “Blah blah blah heart blah blah blah human blah blah….”

An eight-storey-tall death robot explodes into view with a gun that shoots flaming Terminators, each holding laser rifles.

Unfortunately, the reigning king of brainless action, Sir Michael Bay, proved no more able to harness the power of robot fights than McG. Where Salvation was like trying to amuse yourself with the meagre action figures left in your grandma’s basement, Transformers II was like walking into a house party thrown by every obnoxious person you’ve ever met. It’s possible there was a good time hiding somewhere in all the flailing and the shouting, but you’d never be able to pick it out.

Now it’s GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra’s kick at the can. The titular GIs may not technically be robots, but there’s a machine-like drive in the Hasbro Consolidated Entertainment Empire that suffuses everything they touch. Seeing Marlon Wayans don a robot suit might once have been a source of hope, but now I find myself asking: Do I dare?