A Self Indulgent Piece Of Bay-Mania

Rating: 4/10 (28 August 2007)

Michael Bay is the amalgamation, the collective whole, the personification for everything, the entirety, the complete set of what is wrong with modern day cinema, and still movie goers lap this schmaltz up and make ridiculous claims built from ignorance that films like these are the "greatest movie of the twenty-first century" and some even have the gall to claim it "best movie of all time". For many I can appreciate that film is entertainment, that it is pure escapism, it's a place where you can sit back, unwind, drink your beverage, scoff your food and turn off your mind for ninety-plus minutes, however for people like myself whilst cinema could and should be entertaining, the entertainment doesn't always have to derive from tripe which can only and from hence forth be described as "Bay-Mania".
So what does this newly devised term mean? How is it applicable to Transformers? Well in short, I shall explain. Michael Bay is the type of director that produces grade-a cheese on an epic scale and Transformers falls foul of his mature cheddar touch. All of his films, barring possibly the original Bad Boys, have the same generic feel embedded deep within them, where it becomes almost like the Pixar film collection, same story, different animals. So within Transformers the (new) movie, we have the autobots taken from their quaint 1980s setting and placed in the manic action packed world of 2007 as they search for an object which, apparently, holds the fate of the world, and of course those evil decepitcons are after them. The Transformers themselves, well, they're a touch on American muscle side, big, colourful and brash, pretty much everything you'd expect from Bay-Mania. The special effects used for them is pretty staggering and there are some genuine moments of severe coolness emanating from quick-fire transformations which appeal to the kid within all of us, but unfortunately people become too obsessed with the look of a film and not the feel, and herein lies its major fault.
Typical Bay-Mania suggests that by sacrificing the storyline for special effects you can 'wow' audiences into an unknowing submission so that they go along for the ride rather than connect. This is atypical for most summer blockbusters, but even the first Spiderman film, and indeed the Batman 'prequel' managed to grasp the audiences attention with character development which made their stories rather unique. When your main protagonists however, are fifty foot mechanical entities whose personalities are predefined by comic book conventions, it's difficult to associate yourselves with them. Also the humans that become further associated with the autobots are far too generic, i.e. nerdish guy who 'believes' in the autobots, attractive female who tags along but has a great deal of knowledge over cars, standard American marine with sense, and politicians and generals without sense. The story meanders along from one 'cool' transformation to the next and eventually builds up into an all out frenzy in which thousands of extras, we daren't use the term people in a Bay-Mania film, are quite literally caught up in this mass free-for-all as one by one they all scream, run around and get trampled on, or hit by huge ten foot tow missiles. It's all harmless computer generated fun, but to be honest, I want more from a film these days.
People brandished Spielburgs name around, from his seat in production, citing that he would make sure this would be an "awesome" film, but it doesn't work like that these days, as even he succumbs to the sirens call that is the over indulgence in CGI over plot. So what does transformers bring to the film medium? Nothing, not a jot. It's inoffensive fun to a degree, despite all the jaunty unnecessarily confused angles in the fighting sequences, but a mere firework display of a film isn't enough. It's films such as these which have convinced the mainstream movie going masses, that this is acceptable, that this is what we should want to see and what we should aspire to create and critique, and I'm sorry but that's just not acceptable. Michael Bay represents all which is wrong with Hollywood, and that's profit over prolific, money over mesmerising, more revenge of the sith than return of the jedi, and what only infuriates me more is that Hollywood allow him to continue, and now I hear they're going to remake The Birds? No doubt there'll be eagles transforming into giraffes, and needless car chases as the heroes are hunted down by ten foot tall pigeons. I digress from the film at hand but this is what you get from Bay-Mania, unnecessary genericism, and for those that enjoy this film, you're the ones only furthering his narcissism. Autobots...jog on!