[Peter Suderman]
The Vulture has the scoop on how Michael Bay, auteur of awesome, plans to outdo himself with Transformers 2. Basically: even bigger robots! I fully support this.
Here's the thing about Michael Bay's movies, especially Transformers: While objectively terrible (except for maybe The Rock, which might be possible to defend, at least up to a point), they're nonetheless incredibly fun to watch*. It's not even that they're so-bad-they're-good, like, say, Paul Verhoeven movies, or something like the recent Doom adaptation. No, there's something legitimately entertaining that goes beyond ironic enjoyment -- a weird creative spark.
The first thing, I think, is that he's a surprisingly capable cinematic craftsman. True, his actions scenes often appear to have been edited by a pack of nine year olds after a Cocoa Puffs binge. But his production design, sound, and candy-coated cinematography are all top-notch. The character designs in Transformers, especially, were spectacular; the intricately animated transformation sequences alone justified the price of a ticket.
He also displays a genuine and delightful devotion to over-the-topness. So many mid-list action directors seem content to produce functional, half-competent gunfights and car chases. They're okay doing basically the same things that action directors have done for decades. Bay doesn't want to reinvent the genre by any means, but he very clearly wants to make it bigger, badder, more ridiculous, more outrageous, more fun, more awesome, and, well, just plain more everything at nearly every opportunity -- and in general I think he succeeds.
*I'm pretending Pearl Harbor didn't happen.
It's arguable that Bay has done 2 or 3 really good summer-type movies. "The Rock", "Bay Boys" and "Armageddon" were pretty good for a summer action movie. Granted, that's a pretty low bar: lots of explosions, awesome guns and rocket ships. Neat!
I haven't seen "Transformers", so I can't speak to that one.
I think we are in perfect agreement here. a quick youtube link is in order to defend Michael Bay. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZP7FXFFywy4
A tribute to Michael Bay.
I think the new yorker article put it well in their own snobby way, noting in their review of Transformers that (warning, drunken paraphrasing may not relfect actual review) in creating a film almost entirely about giant robots, Bay had given up on the pretense of covering human emotions and made his first truly honest piece of art.
It its heart, that is probably a much more devastating comment than he deserves (excluding, as you do, pearl harbor), but it is not far from the mark.
You need to get laid.
This post had about as much substance as a styrofoam peanut. It was almost as boring to read about what you think as it must have been to actually think it.
I would agree with this if it had been written about, say, Bad Boys II. But Transformers was far too much about Shia LaBeouf being a hapless twit and not nearly enough about giant robots.
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=241
the Transormers never even combined to make the - whatever it is called- big Transformer- where Optimus Prime is the head... so they have plenty to work with.
the Transormers never even combined to make the - whatever it is called- big Transformer- where Optimus Prime is the head... so they have plenty to work with.
That's Voltron and it's coming soon.