Ok Film. But after bad boys and the rock.
Man what a drop. You make perfect action films. And then this ok family warfare. And I don't talk about Pearl Harbor. How can this director. Or Paul W S Anderson lose their touch that much ????
shareI use the two movies, "Bad Boys" (1995) and "Bad Boys II" (2003), as examples.
In the original, you can tell Michael Bay actually had a decent script and didn't go too over-the-top on action scenes to grab the audience's attention.
The sequel, on the other hand, was always in-your-face. His directing style changed and he seemed to rely heavily on CGI. I always wind up skipping the scene where he has the 360° rotation. It makes my head spin.
"Armageddon" was the tipping point. Late-'90s Michael Bay is what we see in a majority of his films nowadays.
The problem with Michael Bay, and evaluating his career over the last 10 or 15 years, is that he got WAY too wrapped up in the Transformers franchise. It has just dominated his output.
However, when he took a break between Transformers movies, in my opinion at least, he actually ended up making two of the best three films of his career: Pain & Gain and 13 Hours.
I'd say his Top 3 films are:
1. The Rock
2. Pain & Gain
3. 13 Hours
So I think that he's proven he's still "got it" and can still make a great movie when he's feeling inspired to do so.
Actually, Michael Bay relies very little on CGI for the most part, in favour of practical effects.
Movies like Transformers and Armageddon though do require a lot of CGI because practical effects cannot cover the movement of the robots or action set in space, there’s no way around it.
JJ Abrams made Armageddon he carried Michael Bay in the Writers Room
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