The Powet Top 5 – Michael Bay movies

Michael Bay is not a liked man amongst people who like movies. I like movies and I don’t hate Michael Bay! Actually I like his movies quite a bit. Call them what you will, popcorn flicks, mindless entertainment, whatever, I don’t really respect those terms, I just like movies that are fun to watch so here are five pretty damned fun movies that are directed by Michael Bay.

5. Armageddon

What if a giant asteroid was going to collide with the Earth? Well, we’d certainly want to stop it! What if we drilled a hole in the middle, stuffed a nuke into it and blew it up? Well that wouldn’t actually solve the problem but that is the plot of the movie Armageddon starring Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler!

Is this movie the reason people don’t like Ben Affleck? Maybe this and Pearl Harbor, also by Michael Bay. Ben Affleck is a pretty damned cool guy who gets shit on even though he makes good movies but enough about him this is an article about Michael Bay who’s a cool guy who gets shit on even though he makes good movies!

So who’s best to drill a hole into a big assed asteroid? Some blue collar guys who work on an oil rig! America!

So this team of reprobates have to go into space and hilarity ensues! So this is where the typical Michael Bay formula comes in. This is a big budget effects movie but to draw it out you add a bunch of stuff which is just character drama and comedy to make the movie 2 and a half hours of fun! Michael Bay is the master of having his movies be all over the map, like this one!

The drama is pretty forced but still sometimes effective as this movie presents a love story and some family drama as it tries to make the audience cry and then blows shit up!

BOOM! Armageddon!

4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon

This isn’t the best of the Transformers films, but it’s a pretty decent one! Well, it’s better than the second one! The third instalment of the Transformers film franchise mixes some old stuff we’ve come to love and hate, like Shia LaBeouf’s emotional problems and his parents being weird with some groundbreaking stuff like this epic extra long action sequence which dominates a third of the movie.

Once we go to Chicago and get immersed in this 3D CG epic mess of fun we see scenes which are both hated and loved by audiences as we are taken on a ride like we’ve never been on before!

Meanwhile the Autobots in this movie is just total dicks. Optimus Prime is just a horrible villain. I made a video about this last year if you’re interested.

3. Bad Boys

Michael Bay is unpopular for the way he makes silly action movies and interjects inappropriate comedy into them. Bad Boys is almost a fun comedy with action injected into it. This formula seems to have worked much better for him.

This movie has Will Smith in it and Will Smith is pretty much totally amazing and hilarious so the movie is good for that. Martin Lawrence plays the Danny DeVito to Will Smith’s Arnold Schwarzenegger and does a great job of it. The two play off of each other quite well making for a really funny movie.

Then there’s all the other stuff in the movie. It’s got this crazy super intense style. Miama is yellow and it’s always sunset and cool cars and guns and pew pew. Michael Bay at his finest!

2. The Rock

In the summer of 1996 I was still in high school. I had a few assignments due at year end so to get them done I did what any high school kid would do, I put it off until the last minute and then sacrificed sleep. One night I didn’t sleep at all and the next I slept two hours. That next day with two nights totalling two hours of sleep in my body I went out to see a matinee of The Rock and I didn’t fall asleep through it. I fall asleep through everything. I considered this to be a real testament to the quality of this movie.

The Rock is a movie about James Bond being locked up by the US Government and then coming out of prison years later to help a seal team break into Alcatraz to free some prisoners. Well maybe that’s not exactly how it’s presented but if you think of Sean Connery’s character as a future James Bond it actually makes the movie work quite well. It’s really the story of Stanley Goodspeed, a nerd chemical weapons’ expert who has to go in to Alcatraz with a James Bond type.

Was Michael Bay a nerd growing up? I mean what’s with movies about kind of geeky socially rejected guys? I don’t really think of him as being anything like Stanley Goodspeed or Sam Witwicky. I guess he doesn’t exactly write these movies or maybe he doesn’t think much of moviegoers and assumes this will appeal to them more than putting AMOGs like himself into all his films.

The Rock is kind of all over the map. Once again we see Bay’s way of movie making which is to just draw out the beef of a movie with a bunch of really random stuff. While we’re all anxious to see what’s going to happen when the good guys go to Alcatraz James Bond is getting a hair cut from a humourous effeminate man and driving across town to visit his daughter.

Finally we do cut past the chase and get to the climax of the movie which is exciting and full of Bay style action. This movie is funny and very entertaining. One of Bay’s best!

1. Transformers

The first Transformers movie kind of blew me away. Although I fraternize with a lot of trannies I don’t really give a crap about the series. The old cartoon movie is decent but nothing too spectacular but this Michael Bay version just blew me away! The action and giant robots were pretty incredible but best of all is the greatest actor in the world, Shia LaBeouf!

A lot of people hate Shia I guess and this movie probably has a lot to do with it, but he’s not bad in it. He’s actually pretty amazing. He kind of plays the goof and does a decent job. Can you imagine someone worse in this role? They would really stink up the movie!

Shia had done some pretty amazing things previously, mostly in the realm of comedy, so now he proves that he can roll with the big boys and do great action! This is skill that he later used in the horrible Indiana Jones movie that he was the only good part of.

Again this follows the Michael Bay formula. It’s a crazy action effects flick and that costs a lot of money. How do you keep that kind of movie relatively cheap and long? Well you just insert a long part to your movie that’s all about something with almost no effect and pretty much no robots. That part of the movie is called Sam Witwicky! We’re not following the military around for half the movie. We’re following a high school kid who’s trying to get laid and messing around with his parents, and that’s all fun because of Shia LaBeouf!

The later movies in the franchise were decent but not great but this first one is top notch and one that I am happy to call my favourite Michael Bay movie.

So those are my five favourite Michael Bay movies currently in existence though I have to say I sure am excited to see his next film, Pain and Gain.

Which of Michael Bay’s movies are your favourites?