For the longest time, I would blame actors for making shitty movies. It was their fault that a movie would flop, and it was their fault that they uttered crappy dialogue. Really, these people should know better. As though, the actors (especially the A-listers) had full control over the script and where the story was going to go.
Then it dawned on me, because I’m an idiot of epic proportions and I believe in the cinematic magic of the movies, that it’s not necessarily the actors’ fault. They are responsible for being the face of the movie, they portray the character that is written on the page and they do what they’re being told to do. And that those Academy Awards which are awarded to people I don’t care about actually do mean a lot. You know who I’m talking about, script writers, lighting, costume, score, director, producer, etc.
OK, for most of the general public, you care who the director of the movie is. Especially these days when more and more movies are linked to each other with the tag line “From the people who brought you [some epically cool movie from 10 years ago]”.
Directors have their own sense of style, flare and vision for what a movie should be, and often, what the storyline development is. They envisage what a character is like, the style with which they deliver lines, who they are as people. And often, Directors would walk away from a project due to “creative differences”. I often thought that this was code for not enough money. But, as studio bosses and creative heads collide, it is up to the director to fight for his/her vision, and some battles are just lost.
There are plenty of directors out there who deliver great visions from beginning to end, and others, cop out at the last minute and give you a weak weak weak plot twist ending which leaves a disgusted cheap taste in your mouth. Banking on the one awesome plot twist that had the whole world talking. I shan’t name names, but it rhymes with chameleon.
There is one director who has completely destroyed my childhood in the last, say, 10 years. As you can tell by the title of the article, it’s Michael Bay. The reigning king of explosions and over the top nonsensical scenes.
Bay’s early work is awesome! Let me hear you sing it:
Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you?
And then he got his hands on the Transformers franchise. Don’t get me wrong, I, like the rest of the world, was so excited about my beloved childhood memory coming to the big screen, that I walked around singing the theme song.
The first movie rocked, I didn’t care that a “teenage girl” was being sexually exploited and designed to make grown men the world over drool over her. I didn’t care that the nerdy annoying human that Bumblebee aligns himself with is someone I would love to take a baseball bat to. I overlooked everything, because The Transformers transformed!
Then, as the franchise grew, the movies became sloppier and more exploding. The slightest thing would lead to massive explosions, it didn’t matter if it was a stray bullet or a missile, it all lead to massive epic explosions. BOOM! Was the name of the game.
And then, with the latest instalment, Age of Extinction, my patience ran dry. The plotline was thin, the villains annoying, the product placement, the same stupid lines repeated over and over again, “I’m an inventor…”. Michael Bay spent more time explaining why it was legal for an adult to bang the 17 year old hottie than he did on the actual plotline of the movie. Move on p*rve. Just make her 18, there’s a thought.
He’s one of the most profitable directors in Hollywood these days, and thanks to the China market, he will continue to be so.
I had desperately hoped that Age of Extinction would end Bay’s helm of Transformers, but alas, the Chinese market made it highest grossing movie in 2014. Which sees Bay’s triumph as box office gold as far as any studio is concerned. Oh my eyes!
I don’t know how much of a hand he had in last year’s horribly scripted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie, but I swear, as I watched it, it had Michael Bay all over it. The random jumps from place to place, the lack of continuity with wardrobe, plotline development, and stupid plot twists and long winded explanations that make everything OK. Everything was just so convenient and coincidental. And it was a case of tell and not show. Lazy directing.
This movie sucked so much, I had to watch the whole thing just so that I could vent my rage at it, and not someone else. I envisaged myself taking a golf club to my TV and trashing my living room. That’s how much this movie sucked, don’t believe me? Sit down and watch it in one go, and see how much you want to pull your hair out and wonder why you wasted your life on this piece of shite.
And to make matters worse, there’s a sequel to TTMNT. This time, it’s going to be directed by a fairly unknown Dave Green. Here’s hoping that he does more with it and isn’t influenced by Bay’s directing style.
Michael Bay needs to direct/produce a movie that isn’t relying on explosions and grandiose special effects to carry the movie. He needs a decent plotline, and not cast famous Chinese actors from China to sucker in the Chinese domestic market. Well, do that, because it’s just smart business. But, give us a decent plot and script, and less teenage drool material. Women who are over 18 are hot, and teenage boys are more than happy to drool over them.
I am on a Michael Bay strike, I refuse to now pay for anything that he’s involved in. Shitty plotlines, vapid characters who really have nothing to offer other than the standard perve factor, great big explosions (which I’ve seen in every single movie that he’s ever made – boring), close up action sequences which basically show you nothing because it’s way too hard to follow, dumbass humans who always get in the way or captured. It’s standard, formulaic and ultimately very lazy.
There is a fifth instalment of the Transformers franchise, I really hope that Optimus Prime finds out how The Transformers are formed and blah blah blah, away from Earth, and we’re actually given a decent storyline.
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