Ambulance | April 8, 2022 | Universal | Michael Bay | Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II

[excel1]

1 hour ago, filmlover said:

Honestly this looks like the kind of movie Bay should be making since his hectic style of filmmaking has always seemed more well-suited for urgent thrillers such as this vs. $200M productions dominated by CGI and bigger-than-the-sky explosions. I do think he's more talented than most of his detractors claim, despite the stinkers outweighing the winners in his filmography.

 

THE ROCK, ARMAGEDDON and TRANSFORMERS are all time great crowd-pleasing popcorn blockbusters. PEARL HARBOR is perhaps the most visual beautiful ever made and the bombing scene is among the best action sequences ever. BAD BOYS and BAD BOYS 2 are perfect adult action/comedy. 

[filmlover]

9 hours ago, excel1 said:

 

THE ROCK, ARMAGEDDON and TRANSFORMERS are all time great crowd-pleasing popcorn blockbusters. PEARL HARBOR is perhaps the most visual beautiful ever made and the bombing scene is among the best action sequences ever. BAD BOYS and BAD BOYS 2 are perfect adult action/comedy. 

I'll give you The Rock but the rest...

 

[excel1]

5 minutes ago, filmlover said:

I'll give you The Rock but the rest...

 

 

Transformers 1 is awesome. Armageddon is great if you shut the brain off. The Pearl Harbor attack scene is incredible. Scarlett Johansson in The Island is the best she's ever looked. 

[Last Man Standing]

The first Transformers movie is actually underrated.

[lorddemaxus]

20 minutes ago, Last Man Standing said:

The first Transformers movie is actually underrated.

All 5 are underrated (but Transformers 4 is the closest to actually deserving its reception and that's because it's so boring and restrained).

[Rorschach]

Bad Boys II - now that's some good cinema right there.

[filmlover]

I've actually always maintained a soft spot for Armageddon simply because it's the kind of silly disaster movie that really could've only been made in the late 90s (you couldn't get away from that Aerosmith song even if you tried back in the day) and doesn't pretend it's anything more than that. 

[WittyUsername]

Michael Bay’s Transformers films are some of the laziest big budget blockbusters of all time. It’s been a meme that the movies are practically interchangeable and they couldn’t even keep the continuity straight. 

[excel1]

Marvel 100% has been making PG-13 Michael Bay films the whole time. No doubt about it IMO. 

 

BAD BOYS - awesome though can tell Bay is finding his way still.

 

THE ROCK - great and iconic in every possible way, even Roger Ebert thought Bay was the next Spielberg after this. Connery-Cage-Harris all brilliant, insanely rewatchable 

 

ARMAGEDDON - shockingly dumb premise, even by Hollywood disaster movie standards, but with awesome action and a powerhouse turn by Bruce Willis and a dozen side characters (Big Mike Duncan!), this becomes surprisingly emotional and memorable thrill ride.

 

PEARL HARBOR - Bay tries to go serious and it leads to an all-time great misfire for sure but the attack scene is stunning, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett are basically super models thrown into Hawaii/world war 2. This movie SCREWED Ben Affleck though - everyone thought he was the more annoying and uglier of the 2 men, he absorbed most of the hate while Hartnett was soon offered $100 million to be Superman

 

BAD BOYS 2 - Bay going back to his roots and makes a FUCKING AWESOME hilarious thrill ride. Gabrielle Union is straight stunning in this movie btw 

 

THE ISLAND - Bay again tries serious and it just stick. But good lord, Scarlett Johansson looks better here than at any other time in her career. Also the music is tremendous.

 

TRANSFORMERS - Bay chooses an expensive, risky subject for his true "comeback movie" and delivers in spades with a hilarious, thrilling actioner with iconic special effects. This movie made Megan Fox a star while everyone thought Shia LaBuff was the next Jim Carrey.

 

TRANSFORMERS 2 - Bay lost me here, this hurt my brain and was disappointing. 

 

People really don't realize the enormous impact Bay has had on pop culture over the year. He:

-gave birth to Will Smith, tv to movie star who would go on to be THE movie star

-sponsored Connery's true comeback

-sponsored Aerosmith's true comeback

-gave birth to Josh Hartnett, superstar, who hated it and willingly choose to go away

-gave birth to Ben Affleck, way too overexposed superstar that NEEDED to go away 

-gave birth to Shia LaBuff, tv to movie star, who would go on to lose his mind

-gave birth to Megan Fox, movie star, who is still relevant to this day despite making like 2 other films

 

But on the other hand, here is a list of "competent or better" acting performances in Michael Bay films (that I have seen), ranked in order (newsflash - there aren't many):

 

1. Bruce Willis in Armageddon

2. Kate Beckinsale in Pearl Harbor

3. Ed Harris in The Rock

4. Sean Connery in The Rock

5. Will Smith in Bad Boys

6. Nicolas Cage in The Rock

7. Shia LaBuff in Transformers

8. Josh Hartnett in Pearl Harbor

9. Ewan McGregor in The Island

 

Here is a list of truly HORRIBLE acting performances 

 

1. Ben Affleck in Armageddon

2. Megan Fox in Transformers 2

3. Megan Fox Transformers 1

4. Rosie Huntinging Whitley in Transformer 3

5. Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbor

6. Martin Lawrence in Bad Boys 2

7. Liv Tyler in Armageddon

8. ScarJo in The Island

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by excel1

[excel1]

7 minutes ago, WittyUsername said:

Michael Bay’s Transformers films are some of the laziest big budget blockbusters of all time. It’s been a meme that the movies are practically interchangeable and they couldn’t even keep the continuity straight. 

 

The sequels, sure. But the first one was highly original and innovative. Gotta give credit where its due - EVERYONE thought the live-action toy movie starring a the kid from the Disney channel was going to be a HUGE flop . But then the trailers came out, and everything changed overnight. 

[robertman2]

I still enjoy the first Bayformers, even if there's heavy nostalgia there.

 

The 86 animated movie and Bumblebee are better tho

Edited February 7, 2022 by RobrtmanAStarWarsReference

[WittyUsername]

10 hours ago, excel1 said:

 

The sequels, sure. But the first one was highly original and innovative. Gotta give credit where its due - EVERYONE thought the live-action toy movie starring a the kid from the Disney channel was going to be a HUGE flop . But then the trailers came out, and everything changed overnight. 

The first one was innovative for its time, even if the designs weren’t very appealing. I’ll agree with that. Unfortunately, Bay wasn’t even trying with the sequels. They’re just a bunch of incoherent nonsense. It took a lot of restraint to not walk out of the theater when I was watching AoE.

[baumer]

Bay is one of the three best film makers working right now.  

 

Not gaslighting here, I truly believe he is.  No one can direct the way he does right now.  He's brilliant imo.

[JonahVex]

what is the budget on this one?

[excel1]

9 hours ago, WittyUsername said:

The first one was innovative for its time, even if the designs weren’t very appealing. I’ll agree with that. Unfortunately, Bay wasn’t even trying with the sequels. They’re just a bunch of incoherent nonsense. It took a lot of restraint to not walk out of the theater when I was watching AoE.

 

Transformers 2 is one of the worst films I've ever seen and I was shocked at how much hated it after loving the first one so much. Bay has followed up both of his big disappointments (pearl harbor w/ critics and the island w/ everyone) with 2 epic films with Bad Boy 2 and Transformers. Bay knew he had to deliver with Transformers 1 and did so flawlessly. 

[Tarintino]

Michael Bay has an eye for cinema that most highly praised directors lack. He also has the ability to give us fun and relatable characters in most of his films. He understands his audience most than critics.

 

In terms of his Transformers sequels, most of them are bad but Transformers 3 is underrated. The action scenes in that are better than anything Marvel has ever produced. They can try and carry on the Transformers franchise without Bay but as we've seen with Bumblee Bee, no amout of critical praise will change the fact that Bay's version was just far more interesting, even if he did get lazy

Edited February 8, 2022 by Tarintino

[Liiviig 1998]

Surprised to see love for bayformers here . Love most of them despite some questionable writing and bad acting especially the sequels.

 

Genuinely love the first movie always watch it once every one or two years. It's no masterpiece but I think it's underrated and doesn't deserve to be rotten.  

 

The first half of transformers 2 is really bad but latter half salvages it for me.

 

Love transformers 3 it gets back to form but not enough to top 1 due to some really bad acting . It has the best action sequences of the bay former movies.

 

Transformers 4 was serviceable,it has the most interesting set up for a story for any bayformers movie of the autobots being hunted and invention of transformium which were ripe for telling a better story but lacklustre execution.

Daughters boyfriend was really cringe.

Love lockdown best villain in bayformers alongside centinel prime.

 

The last knight was just plain boring to me. It has one of the most jarring continuity errors in the series , Optimus is out for chunks of the story. My worst in the series

 

Overall love the series but its worst detriment is the human side, autobot story is serviceable to good for me. Boy do we have some cringe worthy acting in this series. 

 

Ranking

 

Transformers 1

Dark of the moon

Bumblebee

Age of extinction .

Revenge of the fallen.  first half of this movie esp the parents and the college stint were really bad for me.

The last knight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[excel1]

Super bowl spot, looked good, rated R

[lorddemaxus]

Finally a spot for something real.

[Last Man Standing]

Scriptshadow.net reviewed the screenplay, and said this:

 

Quote

This script is so good, my friends, that I did something I’ve never done before. I STOPPED READING before the final act. Why? Because this was such an amazing script that I didn’t want to spoil the ending for myself. I want to wait until the movie comes out to see what happens. This is really amazing stuff.

If it lives up to that it can really be a return to form for Bay.