Few directors are so distinctive – and derided – that their style is given its own portmanteau.
Michael Bay and his associated Bayhem has become the byword for movie making excess – be it over the top action, relentless camera movement or the over reliance on CG. It’s the norm to hold him and his films in sanctimonious contempt and to dismiss his films as “less than” cinema.
Is it fair, however, to throw the Bad Boys baby out with the Pain and Gain bath water? Am I trying to make the case for Bayhem? Yes. And no. It’s complicated.
Let’s examine why some directors get a pass when they make terrible movie after terrible movie yet some have their work poured over in minute detail to “expose” or “take down” (a loathsome internet notion) a creative person’s work.
[Shameless Plug: You can hear what our two podcasters think about Bay’s The Rock in our handy little player below – or wherever you usually listen]
The Good, The Bad and The Lazy
It is important to point out before we really begin that when I use terms like “good” or “bad” in describing a film I am of course using my own judgment. When I watch a film I want to be entertained first, then I want to believe that the film was made by people who care about the audience, and by that I really mean if there is any hint of pretentiousness or superiority I am out. Lazy writing, direction, design or concepts mean whoever was in charge either didn’t care or didn’t think the audience would notice. That’s the criteria on which I am basing this whole thing.
Michael Bay’s filmography has 16 credits as director, and for clarity I have seen all but one. I think four are really good, another four are fine, another four are pretty bad and three are objectively terrible. It’s a bizarre mish mash of solid slick action films with good characters and tight scripts to overly long and incomprehensible assaults on the eyes. Then there’s the weird outliers that are neither long or good. It’s a patchy list to be sure but a few twists and turns aside I would argue that he has a solid fifty percent hit rate, in that half his movies are what I would consider good.
I’m not going to do a line by line analysis of the Bay filmography, in fact I shall deliberately and for my own ambiguous amusement only mention some so as to allow the reader to guess which films fall into which categories, but I do want to fly the flag for what I consider to be his best films, or at least my favourites.
The Rock, a very big rock and Troopers
The Rock is a masterpiece on which I have written before, so no need to retread that path. Bad Boys is great, I’ll accept no hoity toity nonsense about it being anything else. Armageddon is cliched, overly sentimental and utterly preposterous and I love it with a fiery passion. It knows what it is and doesn’t pretend otherwise. It’s stupidity is matched by its sincerity , in the mould of Starship Troopers.
Finally, we must mention Transformers, his first foray into that universe. If I’m being honest it’s about 20 minutes too long but apart from that it is brilliant. The script walks the required razor’s edge between impossible to deliver exposition and lore exploration and wonderfully executed character development delivered with proper comedic timing and zeal. It also has pretty much flawless CG and stops just short of the excess and bombast he falls into for the sequels. These are all good if not great films and will defend them and him all day long.
If we are, then, to take my 50% success rate as a benchmark, let’s dive into the filmography of directors who are universally lauded.
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Ridley Scott: Cinematic Titan
Sir Ridley Scott has 29 director credits with some of those being undeniably, cast iron, non-negotiably brilliant classics.
There are, however, a couple of genuinely terrible films and a lot of very average ones.
By my count there are 12 questionable to bad entries in his filmography which translates to about 40% of his whole output being sub par yet he is lauded as a cinematic titan, an all time great.
For one of the very best of all time that’s a pretty average return.
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Christopher Nolan: Cinematic Timelines
No director is put on a pedestal these days more than Chris Nolan. His fans are some of the most humourless and sanctimonious people you will find on the internet, and there is some stiff competition for that particular position.
He has a dozen films under his belt as director and I think a couple are brilliant. He has made a career by creating an almost supernatural aura surrounding his projects such that before they’re even released it is unacceptable to deny their magnificence.
A couple of his films aside they are almost always at least 30 to 45 minutes too long and rely on the same trope of starting at the end and messing with the timeline, which is interesting once but gets tired pretty quick otherwise. It is my contention that five of this 12 are bloated, cliche-ridden Oscar bait so I give him a hit rate of just over 50%.
“But it’s filmed in proper IMAX” isn’t a defence for self indulgence.
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James Cameron: Cinematic Hack
James Cameron is one of the most canny operators in movie history. Nobody can manipulate the box office quite like Jim can. His numbers don’t lie. I have had an issue with his output since the 90s. At times it’s like I’m screaming into the void. He cannot write dialogue or female characters yet he continues to have massive worldwide success. It’s infuriating beyond comprehension. My own feelings towards some of his most loved work fly in the face of conventional wisdom but I make no apologies for holding up a mirror to Mr “I actually wrote Point Break, they just stole it from me” and his massive shortcomings. He has made 10 films, several of which make up the highest grossing films of all time, but I maintain that one is great, two are good and the rest are objectively bad. Easy maths on this one, 30% hit rate. He’s a hack.
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Cinematic snobbery and theatrical tribes
To go through every director in this way would get tiresome for the reader (like watching a Jim Cameron film) or get so long you would get bored (like watching a Chris Nolan film), but I picked these three in particular because they are so (largely) universally adored.
There are so many directors who I feel have far stronger filmographies (Spielberg, Fincher, Tony Scott, Redford for example) yet are dismissed as either too mainstream or ignored for no good conceivable reason at all. Why, then, is it that Michael Bay is the byword for directorial ineptitude and eyes are collectively rolled at the mere mention of one of his projects?
The answer is, as I said, cinematic snobbery.
Groupthink, trends, viral content and the need to form tribes is currency in the modern world, and the need to not only belong to the “right” group but, more importantly, to not belong to the “wrong” one is paramount. Heaven forfend you should not toe the party line and criticise the wrong person, even worse to show even the slightest affection for something, or someone, who is beneath artistic contempt.
Such has the conventional wisdom taken hold over Bay that it’s pretty much impossible in polite society to say you like one of his films. I think the time has come to stop this particularly petty predilection.
Do yourself a favour and let The Bayhem wash over you in all its glory.
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