Michael Bay: how the people’s pyromaniac redefined action cinema

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/27/michael-bay-tranformers-bad-boys

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It’s a pop culture anniversary you probably didn’t have inked on your calendar, but this April marks 20 years since Bad Boys first graced the big screen. The easily forgotten Miami cop caper starring Martin Lawrence and Will Smith was a smash hit on its original release. But while the film may have fallen off many people’s radars over the intervening two decades, its director most certainly hasn’t.

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That director is Michael Bay, a man who may have started out making videos for Vanilla Ice but has ended up one of the most influential film-makers of his generation. Bad Boys was decried by critics upon its original release; Entertainment Weekly said it was “like watching Beverly Hills Cop XI and XII at the same time.” As anyone who’s seen the later instalments of the Eddie Murphy franchise will tell you, that’s a damning condemnation.

And yet Bad Boys certainly caught the attention of audiences, taking more than $140m at the global box office. Its success stemmed largely from the fact it was a greatest hits compilation of other memorable movies. There was the buddy cop chemistry of Lethal Weapon, the one-liners of Speed and the high-octane SFX-driven action of the Terminator movies; it wasn’t exactly highbrow, but it certainly gave audiences what they wanted.

It’s a familiar story to anyone who has followed the director’s career. Bay has gone on to become something of a byword for bad movie-making, with critics roundly condemning his films as little more than a CGI-enhanced assault on the senses; brainless blockbusters that don’t elevate the moviegoing experience so much as deliberately lower the tone. Whether it’s the commercial behemoth that is the Transformers franchise or the paint-by-numbers devastation of Pearl Harbor, it seems that those who like to think deeply about movies dislike the director precisely because he encourages his audiences to do the exact opposite.

At the same time, Bay’s films have gone on to take £5.7bn at the box office. For better or worse his influence on the multiplex cannot be underestimated. In fact, just about every film that’s entered your eyeholes over the past two decades has been influenced by the people’s pyromaniac in some way.

For Bay, trifles such as plot and characterisation are tiresome. Instead it’s all about the image. The camera is always on the move in a Bay movie. These moments are further enhanced by rapid-fire cuts and dizzying editing. Where most directors might shoot an explosion from afar, or pan out to show you some perspective on the sight of two giant robots beating seven shades of Transformium out of each other on the streets of Chicago, Bay gets up close, taking audiences inside the action. It’s carefully choreographed mayhem, a discombobulating mix of seemingly random angles that creates an unashamedly kinetic experience where the camera – and subsequently the audience – is flung around as if it is taking a punch from Optimus Prime.

This in-your-face style of action has become the norm in the wake of Bay’s success. Whether it’s the frenetic fisticuffs of comic-book movies like Avengers Assemble and Man Of Steel or the technology laden destructo-porn of Avatar and Battleship, the director has left his indelible mark on modern blockbusters. What’s more, he has flipped action storytelling on its head. Bay inverted the approach that saw film-makers intersperse their narratives with one or two gob-smacking action sequences, and instead punctuated his action sequences with one or two moments of, you know, actual story. The outcome is that every moment is thrilling, every line is a zinger and every shot is carefully constructed to send your jaw to the floor to the point where it feels as if you are watching a two-hour trailer rather than a feature film.

You cannot deny that Bay gives audiences exactly what they want, and then some. In fact, with the average running time of a Michael Bay movie weighing in at a buttock-numbing 145 minutes, you could even say he over-indulges them. And Hollywood has followed his lead. Whether it’s the improbably successful Fast And The Furious films (Furious 7 recently tipped over the $1bn mark after just a month in the cinema), or the never-ending procession of superhero blockbusters, the current trend of over-long, over-hyped and over-the-top film fodder rarely strays from the trail that Bay has blazed.

Love him or hate him, maybe it’s time to start giving Bay the respect he deserves. After all he doesn’t just blow shit up, he does so in style. A style that’s unique, instantly recognisable, and makes even the most pedestrian of blockbusters his own. In that regard, he’s every inch the auteur. And so perhaps, just as critics in the late 1950s reappraised the works of populist directors such as Hawks and Hitchcock, in another 20 years time the next generation will be hailing the cultural importance of Bad Boys and the rest of the Bay blockbuster canon.