Michael Bay Is The Devil

Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys 2, The Island, Transformers, and Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen. If it please the court, I submit into evidence these examples of cinema crime perpetrated by one, Michael Bay.

I mean really, what a motley list of movies this is. And yet, box office experts say his sequel to Transformers may have the biggest opening weekend of all time eclipsing The Dark Knight. To be fair, I have not and will not see the new Transformers movie. Why? Because you don't have to witness a car crash to know that it's a bad thing.

Michael Bay directs all of his movies as if the entire film-going audience is made up of 13 year old boys. To watch a Michael Bay movie (I've seen most and at least parts of all of them) is to experience an assault on the senses. His cinematography is all golden hued "magic hour" sunsets . And Michael Bay shoots every scene as if every hour of every day is "magic hour." Even the night time ones! His films are edited as if by someone in the thralls of an epileptic fit. The camera can never hold a scene for more than 3 seconds without having to cut. Characters in his films tend to shout if for no other reason than to be heard over whatever's being blown up. And the words they say! The dialogue in his movies must be written by someone who hasn't graduated from crayons yet. He seems to confuse the most directing with the best directing. I suspect that he keeps things moving at this ADD pace so that no one has the time to notice that in a Michael Bay movie there is no "there" there.

Every character in his movies seems to come from some sort of stock stereotype. Typically the heroes are of the dense musclebound jock variety. Will Smith, Nic Cage, Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson all at your service (Yes, I know Shia Lebouf's an exception but I'll get to him later). Parents are as clueless as any you would find in any 80's teen movie (Lebouf's folks in Transformers for instance). Black characters tend to shout a lot and act crazy in general (Martin Lawrence, Cuba Gooding, Tyrese Gibson, Anthony Anderson). And all the girls look and dress like they fell off the cover of Maxim magazine (Tea Leoni, Vanessa Marcil, Megan Fox). I know movies are a fantasy but this is ridiculous.

Only once has Bay attempted to make a movie that was about something. And that movie is the awful, execrable, Pearl Harbor. Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor is essentially the "true" story of U.S. Army Air Corps Second Lieutenants George Welch and Kenneth Taylor. But since Bay made a bunch of shit up they were called Rafe McCawley (Ben Affleck) and Danny Walker (Josh Hartnett). Has there ever been a worse made up name than Rafe McCawley? I think not. Also, apparently the standard Army issued hair cut of the 40's allowed for bangs (Hartnett) and a pompadour (Affleck). Beyond that, there's a whole list of historical inaccuracies. They are too large in number to fit in this space but here's two for the sake of example. In the movie, the real life character of Dorie Miller (Cuba Gooding) mans an anti-aircraft gun and shoots down a Japanese plane. One problem. It didn't happen. In fact, the ship moored next to the one Miller is shooting from in the movie didn't even exist until 1969! Also, there is a montage of the year 1940 shown in the movie that depicts an American Pershing tank shooting up a street in Germany. But we (US ground forces) weren't in Germany in 1940! In fact, real life Second Lieutenant Kenneth Taylor referred to the film as "A piece of trash...over sensationalised and distorted." All of which could be forgiven if the damn thing were any good or even fun to watch. But it's not. The saddest thing is that this wooden acted, hyper directed garbage only does one thing well (blow up stuff real good), will probably be the long standing cinematic document of the most horrifying day in this country's history prior to 9/11. Thanks.

So now Bay is back with the sequel to the howl inducing Transformers. A movie that esteemed USA Today movie critic Mike Clark damned with faint praise as "...the closest Michael Bay has come to making a good movie." So let's get this straight, a movie based on a cartoon about alien robots who come to earth and can shape shift from a camaro to the size of a skyscraper, have names like "Bumblebee" and "Megatron," and seems to exist solely to sell Hasbro toys and plastic cups at Taco Bell or Burger King or wherever, is this man's high water mark? The mind reels.

Now I'm not such a snob that I can't enjoy a good popcorn movie. The Dark Knight was my second favorite movie last year (after The Wrestler) and I had a good time at Iron Man as well. But see, those were good films. The Dark Knight managed to make Batman a parable about living in the terrorist age and Iron Man was full of wit and charm. Something you could never say about the bludgeoning sensory overload of Bay's films.

Bay's movies are full of actors who should know better (Ed Harris, Sean Connery, Steve Buscemi, Alec Baldwin, Ewen McGregor, John Turturo, etc.). But I suppose they gotta eat too and a mega budgeted Michael Bay flick surely pays well. But I'm really worried about Shia Lebouf. Lebouf seemed poised to become his generation's John Cusack. An offbeat, not too handsome charmer with an eclectic career ahead of him. Now he seems fixated on becoming an action star and is willing to say lines like "Megatron wants what's in my brain." I'd like to know what's in his brain too. I'm guessing dollar signs.

Now I'm quite certain that Bay thinks of himself as this generation's Steven Spielberg but he's not even Baz Luhrman (Romeo and Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Australia). Hell, Luhrman's films are practically subtle compared to Bay's. Actually, the closest filmmaking predecessor would probably be Irwin Allen the creator of the disaster film genre (Towering Inferno, Poseidon Adventure, When Time Ran Out). But even that's not really fair, Allen's films were only about disasters whereas Bay's films are disasters.

To be clear, it's not that I don't think that Bay has any technical skill. Far From it. He certainly knows how to move the camera and get the shot that he wants. In fact, I would bet that every movie Michael Bay has made has turned out exactly the way he has wanted it to. Which is both a compliment and a curse. It's not even that he doesn't have a vision (albeit an inch deep). It's that he has no taste. Yet his films have made billions of dollars. Why? Because there are a lot of 13 year old boys (young and old) running around out there.

Sumo-Pop
June 24, 2009