Why Michael Bay should donate his brain to science

Image source: collider.com

By Max Jewell






Michael Bay should donate his brain to science.

Is it because he is a towering cinematic genius whose work will be shown in retrospectives and discussed by film critics for the next millennium? No. It is simply because he clearly has no use for it himself.

In fact, at no point during any of his films does the viewer require his or her brain either. Bay’s plots are so simplistic a newborn child could comprehend his films (and probably find them rather intellectually undemanding compared to a bright yellow plastic ring for example). I’ve yet to see a single film produced by Mr Bay that has not been utterly emetic and a total waste of time. To Bay the principle behind an excellent film is pyrotechnics. Look at Transformers, a film where everything conceivable explodes and Shia LeBeouf struggles through a vapid script with an incongruous goatee beard. In fact, Transformers, is easily one of the worst films released this decade. At least films like Epic Movie or the equally trite 300 don’t have ambitions well above their station.

The problem with Michael Bay is that he genuinely believes he is a good director.

However, with credits like Bad Boys, The Hitcher (which not even the prodigious Sean Bean could save) and Pearl Harbour, Michael Bay’s filmography reads worse than the sleeve notes on a Justin Bieber album. To justify my innate hostility towards Mr Bay a quick scrutiny of the Transformers film should suffice. Transformers, a plastic film ostensibly based on a plastic toy is utterly vacuous. It centres around an unending war between the ‘Autobots’ and the ‘Ðecepticons’, the stupid names ascribed to the two camps, which sound incredibly generic, are proof that American’s don’t ‘get’ sarcasm.

The previous sentence has effectively summarised the plot and, whilst this is a “high concept” film[1], it is anything but high art, or even good trash for that matter. For the remaining 144 minutes, which only serve to remind you of your own mortality, and, in a style befitting Lester Burnham, the viewer is forced to sit passively as his or her life slips inexorably before his or her eyes, occasionally broken by something exploding on screen. In between Optimus Prime’s monologue, a robot, which seems to have developed laryngitis, there are innumerable shots of Megan Fox’s bottom. As a red-blooded male, I don’t have too much of a problem with this but I can understand why certain women would be tempted to believe feminism hadn’t happened (although this wouldn’t annoy me at all, speaking personally). Unlike Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien or Sarah Polley’s character in Dawn of the Dead, Megan Fox remains mute and aloof from the action. What makes the film worse than dreadful is the fact that it is entirely predictable, from the inevitable relationship between Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf to the victory for the Autobots from Cyribong over the Decipitbons.

I think it’s possible to review Pearl Harbour more quickly. It’s boring. Everything explodes. The Rock: Nicholas Cage is in it and it’s nothing to do with geology (although it’s not short of explosions). For the good of humanity, it is best that Michael Bay sign up for that brain donor programme as soon as possible in order to prevent him from making a film ever again.

See James Smith's defence of Michael Bay at:

http://portsmouthpoint.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/in-defence-of-michael-bay.html

[1] High Concept is a film where the plot can be summarised in less than 35 words e.g Taken – Liam Neeson kills everyone