What I love to read though is the defenders, who never say exactly what they liked about the movie (unlike my 11 year old brother, who not only enjoyed the film, but can list off specific aspects he enjoyed), but these folks on the internet who say the only reason I hate the movie is because I hate the director. Folks, lemme give you a shocker that'll rattle your bones; I like Michael Bay. No, scratch that, I love Michael Bay.
You see, for 11 year old me, Michael Bay was the way I entered film criticism. I'll go into more detail tomorrow when I review the entire franchise, but for an 11 year old in 2007, the first Transformers movie was like our Jurassic Park or Star Wars. It was a movie that just gave us visuals we'd never seen, along with characters we just latched onto. The best part? Adults liked it too, and contrary to what many (who believe critics hate anything and everything Bay steps on) critics were even OK on the project, with it becoming his second best reviewed movie of all-time. But what really mattered to me, and still does to this day, is how impactful the movie was. It was the first PG-13 movie I saw in a theater and was also the first time I ever even saw something Transformers related. After that film, I became obsessed with Transformers, and when the original cartoon came out on DVD two years later, I gobbled that up as well. Thanks to Bay, a new corner of sci-fi opened up to me, and that corner left such an impression on me that I grew close to Bay and his work. The man and his distinct style attracted me like a moth to a bug zapper.
Next up for me to watch was Michael Bay's Armageddon. Experiencing that thing on VHS was glorious, becoming one of my favorite action movies of all-time (if you want a full review I wrote for it, go to the comment section of this article: http://thedissolve.com/news/2202-read-on-may-9s-essential-film-writing/#comment-1377399692) However, my third Michael Bay movie made me realize just how bad a film could be; Pearl Harbor. It was so boring, and instead of the deliriously over-the-top action moments dealing with Deceptions or fictional meteors, it dealt with a very real and very terrifying attack on American soil. It left a bad taste in my mouth and waited until Transformers 2 to get a further taste for Boy and his work.
Unfortunately, that movie disappointed me on such a massive level I didn't even watch Bays other films like Bad Boys or, his only Fresh movie on Rotten Tomatoes, The Rock. At this point, I gave up on Bay, and it appears Bay gave up on the Transformers movies. The energy and spark (no pun intended) that went into the first one was gone in all the sequels, and for good reason. Bay came onto the Transformers franchise originally after his biggest financial failure, The Island (a movie I haven't seen, but I've heard good things about) and thus had something to prove. But now, his glory is attained and secured. All he has to do is blow stuff up, which he loves to do anyway, promote China and beer and then go home.
It's interesting to see how few summer blockbuster franchises these days can retain their directors beyond one or two movies; Jon Favreau jumped ship after Iron Man 2, Martin Campbell couldn't be convinced to do a Casino Royale follow up and even the executive producer of the Transformers movies, Steven Spielebrg, could only manage two trips to Jurassic Park. Michael Bay on the other hand, has happily done four Transformers movies, and there appears to be little stopping him from doing a fifth. And why should he? Despite the critical thrashings his Transformers sequels (rightly) received, the director Bay now mostly resembles is Christopher Nolan (who Leonardo DiCaprio noted actually loves Bays movies) and that mans relationship with Warner Bros. Just like how Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy (which he directed all the way through) gave him a good reputation with the home of the Animaniacs, Michael Bays ability to bring the explosions and sexism each time in his Transformers movies to the tune of a billion bucks makes him the best buddy of Paramount Pictures.
And, just like Nolan, Bay now has the ability to churn nay old movie he wants in between franchise endeavors. Whereas Nolan gave us Inception, Bay gave us Pain & Gain, a movie that should have shown us just why people like me liked Bay in the first place. Instead, it showed how far the mighty had fallen. Watching Quentin Tarantinos Reservoir dogs this morning, which doesn't share much plot similarities with Pain & Gain, but in terms of style, it's pretty apparent in my visual driven mind that Bay was looking up to Tarantino in terms of making sure audiences could stomach graphically violent content. But whereas Tarantinos depiction of stylized violence is supposed to make us despise the characters even more than we already do, Bay has no reason behind his stylization of violence besides the fact that, uh, he's Michael Bay and all his violence is over-the-top.
That;s not to say Pain & Gain is bad. It's easily better than any Transformers sequel and the acting from Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and especially Tony Shalhoub is excellent. is excellent. But the hard truth I learned from the film was that the Bay I loved was gone. The filmmaking style of Revenge of The Fallen and its successors puts focus on visual spectacle and nothing else, and unfortunately that poor way of making movies means Pain & Gain is left with a scattershot script that would have doomed the project had it not been for the two leads, who carry the film to watchability. But that's all it is, watchable. The likes of Armageddon and Transformers that managed to transfix me years ago and today now seem like relics from an era long gone. An era where Bay put care and consideration into his films. And now that he has the power to be the equivalent of Christopher Nolan at Paramount, there's no stopping him from unleashing Transformers and middling projects like Pain & Gain until the apocalypse Bruce Willis tried to avert. It's disappointing, to say the least, someone who brought so much to my life as a lover of film now being content to churn out garbage like Transformers: Age of Extinction. Perhaps one day, Bay will return to glory, but until then, I'll just rewatch my VHS tape of Armageddon, and promise myself in futility that I won't cry at the ending this time around.
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