Why Michael Bay Will Always Suck

If I were still in college, I’d give serious thought to writing a term paper on Michael Bay and the effect of his films on the modern entertainment industry. Since we’re well past that age (as evidenced by my expanding waistline), and well into the Age of Bloggery (as evidenced by the fact that you’re reading this), I’ll write an online article instead.

Although MUCH has been said against Bay, more needs to be done to bring his particularly malicious brand of ‘entertaining’ to an end. I know it won’t have an actual effect–the man’s movies tend to be monstrously successful–but it would be remiss of me to never try. Let’s get started, shall we? Below will be bullet points summing up, and (hopefully) short paragraphs detailing, some of the many deficiencies and outright damages Bay has wrought.

Summer Movie=Dur?

Defenders of Michael Bay often love to point out that his movies are mere ‘Summer Movies’–a catchall term for a brand of entertainment that is, for some reason, allowed to be held to lower standards than any other film released at any other time of year. ‘Summer Movies’ tend to have high-concept plots (Ex-military men take hostages in Alcatraz, and the only guy who can stop them is the only man to have ever escaped!), rely heavily on action carried out by gruff manly-man assisted by shiny high-tech gear (there’s a meteor about to hit the Earth! Send up a rough-and-tumble, rag-tag team of oil drillers!), and are generally simplistic affairs, with no more meaning or layers than exactly what you see onscreen. No thought required–you just show up, look at the screen, and are viscerally entertained. Fair enough–and let’s be clear: I LOVE ‘Summer Movies’–when they’re executed well.

What summer movies are executed well, in contrast to Michael Bay’s ham-fisted, subhumanly moronic attempts at moviemaking? Let’s start with the movie that is largely considered to be the first ‘Summer Movie’, and the first ‘Blockbuster’ in modern times–"JAWS".

That’s right. What looks like a quaint little psuedo-horror movie now was, at the time, one of the biggest movies of all time, and it basically came out of nowhere to DEFINE the summer movie season, and changed the very way Hollywood does business. It was the first movie to be released in the summer season to make as much money and to have as much of an impact as it did, and Hollywood clued in that simple-but-well-told movies should always be released when a maximum amount of its audience would be available to see it (read: kids out of school, people on vacation, etc.). Hence, ‘Summer Movies’ were born.

But "Jaws" wasn’t successful just because it was released in summer and was set in summer–it was successful because it was GOOD. Really, really good. It was smart, it was brutal, it was fast-paced yet thoughtful–it was simple without being simplistic. In other words, it was the perfect high concept: monster shark terrorizes small beach town, fish-out-of-water cop tries to stop it. And in that simple high concept was a much deeper, more meaningful and universally appealing concept: man vs. nature. Even though we’re at the top of the food chain, what can we do when Mother Nature throws something at us we’re not prepared to handle? It resonated with audiences because it was so simple and yet so viscerally exciting–and this is something that every Summer Movie since then has sought to emulate.

MANY wildly successful Summer Movies since then are perfectly able to straddle the lines between the simple and the sublime, presenting us with easy-to-understand premises that are then told to us in fascinating, engaging, and exciting ways; using wit, intelligence, genuine humor, and good old fashioned storytelling skill. To whit:

Star Wars (and its initial sequels-not prequels)

Back To The Future (and its sequels)

The Indiana Jones movies

Gremlins

Predator

Aliens

Jurassic Park

Poltergeist

Robocop

Lethal Weapon

Gladiator (yep–the one that won the Oscars)

The Fugitive

Ghostbusters

Spider-Man (and its first sequel)

X-Men and X-Men 2

Die Hard

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl

Ghost

The Matrix

The Dark Knight

All of these movies released in the summer, all of these movies wildly successful, and all of them released to much critical acclaim and even more social acceptance. These were the movies EVERYBODY wanted to see, and these were the movies that people would go back to, again and again, to re-experience their many delights, and to discover heretofore-unseen pleasures missed on the first viewing. Because these movies were made with the utmost attention to detail, to story, to plot, to engaging characters, to placing those engaging relatable characters in great and entertaining situations, to entertaining the audience without insulting their intelligence–indeed ENGAGING that intelligence (what would I do in that situation? what’s going to happen now?, etc.).

And then along came "Bad Boys". The movie starred Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, and was considered a fun-but-dumb entry in the ‘Summer Movie’ pantheon. It was accepted and became fairly popular. But its influence was insiduous; it was critically panned, it was overly concerned with mindless (in that it was gratuitous and didn’t have a point other than to exist as an action scene–not to sensibly move the plot along or advance the growth of the characters) violence, and it was derivative of every other buddy-cop movie ever made without adding any new ideas to the genre.

But because of its popularity, people started to erode their sense of what is acceptable in a summer movie, and that erosion proceeded apace with each successive Bay movie: "The Rock" (his best), "Armageddon", "Pearl Harbor", "Bad Boys II", and "The Island". He also created a sort of ’style’ for summer movies emulated by "Con Air" and other films of its ilk. They tended to have huge action set-pieces, one-dimensional characters, and more explosions than lines of dialogue.

This lowering of the bar in terms of quality–and if you’re mystified as to what entails ‘quality’ I point you to any one of the above-mentioned movies–and popular acceptance that financial success equals quality has led Hollywood down a slippery, lowest-common-denominator slope that has led us to Hollywood’s current obsession with thoughtless remakes and sequels. You see, movies that were not well-made were making money, so that meant they could just churn out any old thing they pleased–they didn’t have to spend as much time or careful attention as was spent on "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Gladiator" or even "Back To The Future"–they surmized that as long as people will pay, and as long as people are stimulated, that’s all that matters.

And let’s be clear–Michael Bay is concerned with STIMULATION, not with storytelling. He knows you like the exciting, pretty explosions, and the exciting, pretty boobs on those girls, and the exciting, loud gunshots. He knows that we respond to those things on a visceral, enjoyable level. The problem is that he STOPS RIGHT THERE. He fashions fimsy excuses for gunfights and explosions and boob-shots and then thoughtlessly displays them.

Thus, he’s single-handedly destroyed the need for ‘Summer Movies’ to be both entertaining and well-made. He looked at the moviegoing audience as a mass market, surmized–correctly–that we enjoy fireworks (literally looking at the bright, loud colors), and present us, again and again, with just that. The first "Transformers" was a huge success due to a deadly alchemy primarily composed of the monstrous, well-established and demographically broad popularity of the toyline coupled with our baser gravitation toward simplistic titilation and a furious marketing campaign so aggressive you felt like a fool for missing out. Which brings me to my next point…

Needless Aggression

When filmmakers make a film, they have many many choices ahead of them on HOW to tell the story. Chief among those choices is how you use the camera–the device that relays the images that comprise the elements of the movie. Most filmmakers use the camera in basic, essential ways: point and shoot. And some–the best–use the camera in clever, imaginative ways that emphasize and better-define the theme, impact, and meaning of each scene (or character beat or line of dialogue or whathaveyou). With a talented filmmaker, every shot is carefully considered–every frame sweated over and clarified to the point of obsession. The director, who is responsible for the overall tone, pace, feel, and look of the film, works with a huge team of visual artists like the Director of Photography, camera operator, visual effects supervisor, etc., to make the best choices of what the camera does in order to tell the story at hand.

Michael Bay is known for, and, indeed, proud of, his over-use of camera moves. I refer you to the scene in "Bad Boys II" wherein Smith and Lawrence’s characters are pinned down in a small room, with nameless thugs firing at them from another room. Rather than have the tension of the scene heightened with clever editing and judicious use of close-ups, pans, and wide shots, Bay puts on his ’showman’ hat and has the camera endlessly spin around and through the walls of the run as the gun battle ensues:

I know what many of you are thinking–"So what? It’s original and cool as hell!". An opinion you’re certainly entitled to. It IS original, true. But when the sole purpose of that filmmaking decision is so that you’ll NOTICE it, and think that the CAMERA MOVE ITSELF is cool, then Bay has stepped outside of his role as filmmaker (y’know, the guy who is supposed to be telling you a story and involving you in the world of that story without making you aware of it), and has leapt into the role of frat boy that wants to show you a cool trick he just learned. That, folks, is not filmmaking. It’s show and tell.

Bay doesn’t seem concerned with his films having THEMES, per se (and themes are essential for a movie to be anything but a one-dimensional pastiche of activities captured by a camera), but if one were to specify a specific theme in the body of Bay’s work, that theme would seem to be: Aggression Works. Have a problem? Shoot it. Something in your way? Blow it up. Disagree? Yell at and/or insult someone. I’m not saying every movie has to have some kind of overwhelming positive social impact, but when the majority of your body of work strenuously and strongly emphasizes an unfortunate line of thinking like ‘violence always works’, or ’sterotypes are true’, then you need to be called out on it. Try something different, Michael. Flex your creative muscles a bit (and yes, I know he’s been saying he should do just that lately, taking a little break from giant robots and giant-er explosions; I’ll believe it when I see it).

Espousing Unfortunate Stereotypes

Look, "Transformers 2"’s Mudflaps and Skids aren’t the first time Bay has been called out for including overly-broad and seemingly negative portrayals of minorities in his movies. There was a bit of a hubbub over this portrayal of Haitians in "Bad Boys II", and wasn’t exactly interested in portraying a positive view of black characters in the first "Transformers", as is elequently pointed out in this article.

The point is–he seems to have a specific view of miniorities in his movies, INCLUDING the "Bad Boys" franchise. That view is not particularly positive or progressive, and while it might not be his responsibility to include progressive or pro-social messages in his movies, he SHOULD be called out on it–it SHOULD be acknowledged. Mel Gibson will forever be remembered now as a formerly-talented actor and filmmaker who was revealed to be a fierce anti-Semite (who has gone on to apologize and receive counselling, etc.). Why should we allow Michael Bay to coast along, filling each and every one of his movies with an ever-worsening parade of negative stereotypes?

Clearly this is what the man finds funny, clearly this is how he thinks, and yet we allow it to go un-noticed because he writes it off as he did with Mudflaps and Skids as "for the kids"? What’s "for the kids", Michael? You want kids to adhere to and grow up with a view of characters who appear to be black as simultaneously being illiterate, as well?

Steadfastly Refusing To Improve

Filmmakers want to entertain, and the best filmmakers want to entertain AND enlighten. Michael Bay does not want either of these things. He wants to stun you into mute apprehension with his constant assault on your senses. He calls this "entertaining" you. But if he was really interested in entertaining as many people as possible, he would take a step back and listen to what everyone has to say–including critics.

Look, believe it or not, the job of a critic is not to bitch and moan for the sake of bitching and moaning. The job of a critic is to point out that which succeeds and that which fails so that we can learn from our mistakes (and our accomplishments), and improve the medium as a whole.

Michael Bay has stated again and again that he does not listen to critics–that there must simply be people out there that simply "don’t like to be entertained"–a statement that is both stunning in its idiocy and brilliant in its revelation about the core of Michael Bay’s cinematic carelessness. He simply does what he wants, and relies on the fact that his films are successful to speak for itself.

It’s the old "if your friends jump off a bridge, would you?" question. Just because a movie is successful, does that mean you have to like it? The answer to both of those questions is of course "no". At least to sane people. I will not deny that Michael Bay is a very savvy marketer and businessman. He did, after all, get his start in commercials.

So did Ridley Scott, who has made some of the most highly-regarded science fiction and action films in the history of cinema. But the difference between the two is that Bay is concerned simply with the overall impact–the broad strokes of a movie–whereas Scott, rightfully so, is concerned with the quality AND impact of his movies. He develops his characters. He develops his themes. He considers the audience and the critics and thinks about what would make his movies as good as they can be.

Bay simply enforces his own aggressive agenda of what is entertaining and leaves you with no choice but to take it. ESPECIALLY in the case of the "Transformers" movies. Look–the toy line is wildly popular, worldwide. Any action movie director could have made the movies and they would do just as well as they have. They might have even done BETTER if they had been allowed to be interesting, well-executed entertainments rather than the lowest-common-denominator, senseless sitcoms they have become.

In summary: Michael Bay has choices. Every filmmaker does. As a director, you are there to CHOOSE how your movie is accepted by the audience. You choose how to convey the story, how to build the characters, how to get your point across. When the entire point of your larger body of work seems to be advancing your own agenda of aggression and stupidity, then the choices you’ve made are clearly sociopathic. If Michael Bay chose to think about his films beyond the simple, most basic ‘ooh aah’ of bright colors and overwhelming action, his critics (myself included), would not have as much of a problem with him. It’s the fact that he chooses not to try, to show off for no reason, to go for the most mindless possibilities available to him rather than choose to be surprising and cinematically progressive, that he fails again and again. I wholeheartedly want him to change–I know he’s capable of better ("The Rock" manages to be entertaining and not entirely intellectually offensive, for instance), and all I ask is that he choose to improve.

Somehow I feel his answer to this plea would be a quiet, respectful denial that he’s done anything wrong while he draws my attention to an enormous conflagration of his own making. Sigh.

Art by NobleSavage