Saturday, April 27, 2013

Weekend Weigh-in: What is Michael Bay's Best Movie?

Shit just got real.

Michael Bay's new "low-budget" movie, Pain & Gain, is out in theaters this weekend, and it's got a lot of people looking back at his body of work to see how it measures up. So what is Bay's best movie?

Here's what I had to say about his 'essential' movies back in 2011, but that was pre-Pain & Gain and even pre-Transformers: Dark of the Moon. So maybe things have changed since then. Maybe not.

And don't give any "He has no best movie!" answers. First of all, very clever. Second, the point of the exercise is to really try to come up with an honest answer. Lots of people really like Bay's movies. This should be easy for them.

18 comments:

  1. It still has one screaming black man, like all his movies, but I'm going with The Rock. Solid, entertaining movie that has action you can actually follow.

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  2. I'd have to say The Rock. It has all those Bay tropes we've come to know and hate, but it also has entertaining performances by Nick Cage and Sean Connery, a good bad guy in Ed Harris, and a good storyline. The throw-away line "Hey honey, want to know who killed JFK?" makes me cringe, however.

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  3. Is anyone not going to say The Rock? Sure, it's not perfect, and it suffers from the usual action movie plot holes, but it has the intangible fun factor. Cage and Connery are a riot as they duel to out-ham each other, Ed Harris is a sympathetic baddie, and Tony Todd is scary as hell as Harris’s walking killing machine of a henchman. The movie has no down time, the action is (mostly) well-staged, and Hans Zimmer’s testosterone-pumpin’ score is great.

    But, really, The Rock is the only thing Michael Bay has done that’s not unforgivably horrible.

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    1. I expect a few votes for "The Island," which I can't go for because I'd already seen it when it was called "The Clonus Horror" (or "Parts: The Clonus Horror" as it was called on "MST3K").

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    2. Fair enough that it's not exactly original, but I kind of like The Island.

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  4. OK, I'll bite and say "The Rock." For once Bay's eye for composition captures some beautiful imagery (those jets!) that enhances and complements, rather than try to pass for, action or plot beats. Bay went back to the American flag waving thing many times since, but in "The Rock" it resonates because it drives home the genuine patriotism of the otherwise-misguided General Hummel as he unleashes his plan. Did I mention Ed Harris is a talented but insane man? Only Bay in "The Rock" and George A. Romero in "Knightriders" have managed to both exploit, show and bring on-screen the actual crazy from an Ed Harris performance. Harris is the only reason I might even think of catching "Pain & Gain" on cable years from now just to see if Bay was able to squeeze another crazy-cool performance from Ed. And of course Sean Connery plays a mean senior citizen ass-kicker and bad-ass extraordinaire. What "The Untouchables" revive in '87 "The Rock" managed to revitalize in '96.

    Alas, the last time I saw "The Rock" a while back it bugged me to no end that there is a car chase through San Francisco that makes absolutely no got-damn sense whatsoever. It looks good and is as kinetic as my sisters' XBox 360 (you're welcome! :-O) but seriously, the already-stretched-beyond-birth-marks plot just doesn't support it. This is also the movie that kickstarted Nic Cage's 'action superstar' career, and that has to count against it. I gave up on Bay after "Pearl Harbor" so who knows, maybe "Bad Boys II" is the masterpiece that everyone keeps NOT telling me that it is. ;-)

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  5. I'm going to buck the trend and say "Armageddon". Though it could easily be "The Rock" given what mood I'm in. And before you ask, yes I have both dvds from Criterion.

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  6. Sorry, I'm going to be boring here and agree with most others and say The Rock. I truly think it's the best thing he's ever done in a mostly underwhelming, frustrating and sometimes insensitive body of work. I guess Armageddon would be in second place, of what I've seen? But I'll also say I've never seen The Island or the Bad Boys movies.

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  7. I've seen some of The Rock before and, meh. I enjoyed Armageddon enough the first (and only) time i've seen it so maybe that. I actually, and dont attack me for it, really sort of like Bad Boys 2...is it bad? Certainly. Does it have very racist stereotypes/"jokes"/comments? I haven't seen it in awhile but i do remember the KKK being used for/as a punchline, or am i wrong? But, the action scenes are pretty exhilierating (sorry if i butchered the spelling of that). It's 90 minutes too long (seriously, why is Bad Boys 2 almost 150 mins?!?!) but i dont know, i kinda like it. SORRY.

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  8. After perusing a list of Bay's movies, I am happy to say that unless it was ripped apart by Rifftrax I've never seen a Michael Bay movie.

    In fact, I'm downright smug about it. :-p

    So of the three (well, two and a half) Transformers movies I've seen I'd say the first was the best. Still can't make it all the way through the third one even with the jokes.

    And btw...did you all know that he's working on a remake of "The Birds"? There's something the world needs... *retch*

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    1. Regarding a remake of The Birds, if, in fact, it is true:

      No...Just no.

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    2. On the bright side, it's listed on his IMDB page as being so and we know how reliable they aren't.

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  9. Its a good thing nobody here said Pearl Harbor, I think you get deported if you say that.

    My own opinion yeah its The Rock. Its far from a perfect film but he seems to actually have some general sense of control on the action scenes. Also the villain of the film wasn't completely 2 dimensional, I can't think of any other film of Bay's that actually had a decent villain. It really felt with The Rock that someone had a leash on Michael Baysplosion! to keep things together. Its too bad with all of his financial success that there's virtually no chance of that happening again.

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    1. I thought Pearl Harbor had a pretty good villain.

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    2. Yeah, way to ruin an early morning baseball game.

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  10. Thus far, while The Rock is a nostalgic favorite since I saw it the day I graduated high school, I'd have to go with The Island. For its first half, Bay seemed to actually be trying something different, which I always admire, and his often puerile sense of humor was toned way down for that one.

    Plus, Sean Bean.

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    1. YES to the sense of humor thing. I've been thinking I need to rewatch The Island, because I'll be it's better than I gave it credit for. Like you said, he's trying to do something different.

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    2. Tuned past it on cable once.

      After the third product placement in about 30 seconds I decided to pass...

      The tight close-up on the bottled water was the breaking point.

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