armageddon (1998)

the final part of my look into the world of michael bays work sees the world in peril as its faces up against a rather large meteor. all of the usual bay-isms are in place; shoddy slow motion that doubles the films actual running time (usually involving people running towards or away from helicopters), slight racism towards anyone that isnt white (''the russian" is a new low), male and middle class and a hefty dose of unfunny comedy. in its defense though, "armageddon" does feature a great turn from steve buscemi, and iv always had a soft spot for ben affleck.

whilst watching the film i found myself comparing it to clint eastwood's "space cowboys", a film which deals with a similiar film albeit with much more class, dignity and credibility. "armageddon" is great popcorn trash, but little more else. considering the task at hand none of the cast seemed to hold down any kind of thought for it, no one questioned the task or even their own fate. i know thats hardly the point of a michael bay film, but a little bit of realism really wouldnt hurt.

transformers (2007)

michael bay's magnum opus has the honour of being the sole film i have walked out of a cinema screening of. i just found it to be a horribly slow and dull film, with poor special effects and no plot. for the sakes of my current studies i decided to give it another chance on dvd. over the course of 4 days i eventually managed to get through it. to be fair to it, its not actually that bad, its just not my type of thing. the sequel looks promising too, lets just hope they bypass the negatives this time.

the one over-ridingly awful aspect of "transformers comes in the shape of its absolutely terrible humour. its just awful, not funny and embarassingly scripted. michael bay cannot 'do' humour, i was cringing for a good chunk of ''transformers'' bloated running time. related to the humour is the bizarre decision to include a robot that is seemingly based upon a heavy stereotype of black people. it was very strange. iv christened this guy 'rap-bot'. seriously its like something from the 80's, when hollywood first tried to latch onto rap and other 'street' activity. in short its embarassing.

im glad to report that with his most recent fare, michael bay has evolved from the simple "use sun-glare to hide any problems" school of problems. seemingly this has been replaced, or at least split equally between the use of the usual sunlight and the newly implemented torchlight. its an effective technique, at least when it comes to hiding the poor viewers eyes from poorly shot landscapes.

the rock (1996)

once again my studies dictate that i must head into unchartered territory, and an unattractive challenge lies ahead. michael bay is perhaps the opposite to what i love about cinema. his "edit-so-fast-and-you-wont-have-chance-to-see-any-problems" attitude of filmmaking jars with my usual preferences, but in an attempt to understand just exactly what it is about his work that i dislike so much i have set myself a challenge; work my way through his body of work.

with that in mind i started with his sean connery and nicolas cage starring "the rock" from 1996. in all fairness it wasnt as bad as i expected it to be, but the usual bay hallmarks of slightly racist caricature's and lots of sun-glare is evident aplenty. the film leads with a semi-interesting premise, as a post modern james bond-type leads a group of marines and a scientist into alcatraz prison. therein lies the twist, how clever that they are actually breaking INTO a prison, as opposed to breaking OUT?! i hope the irony isnt too subtle for you. bafflingly enough, "the rock" is actually a part of the criterion collection.

my big problem with michael bay films are that they have a tendency to lack any kind of substance, and instead focus on trying to sell you cars and manipulate you into feeling some kind of emotion. alas bay seems more concerned with the former than the latter, so on the brief occasions where he actually managed to measure the pseudo-emotion right he throws it all away within seconds with another sun-glare enthused chevy advert.