Sorry about that one. Someone has to apologize. I love to hate Michael Bay, so this a keystone film for that. Yeah he's brilliant at shooting action, but when the dial is ripped to 12 it gets exhausting. Bloated and loud and it never really lets up. The love interest is iffy at best, and that crap at the end about Daddy you were always my hero! is LOL. There's no redemption amongst the band of misfits. They're OTT to the point of stupidity. Cliche 101. Another thing is dad sacrificing himself for his son-in-law is LOL. He still thinks he's an idiot. The script requires there to be redemption. That's all. Willis is still the same stubborn prick he was when the film started.
I thought The Island and Bad Boys 2 were Bay's best, and generally I don't hate the Transformers films. However this one I cannot stand. I think this and Independence Day kinda coined that turn your brain off dumb fun which I never cared for. Why does it have to be dumb to be an enjoyable film? Here it's just stupid IMO.
Yeah, I used to think this was good bad, but it's just stupid bad. I'm no Bay hater, I have no interest in the Transformers films, but The Rock & Bad Boys 2 are two of my favourite OTT action films.
Love the music and special effects. I absolutely hated this film. Idiot rednecks save the world and lightning fast quick editing left me with a huge migraine headache.
ARMAGEDDON is a noisy affair, but a great action fest. Saw it up again fairly recently (for the fourth time, I believe), and it still holds up wonderfully.
Bay bashing is so 90s! Great director, always been a big fan. Form is content!
No one has knocked Bay here, just called out a crap film, which you happen to like, fine. There plenty of crap films I like, as long as I don't have to sit through this one again.
There's nothing to differ. It's a fact that form is content. People have been communicating ideas through form in all artforms since the dawn of time.
In terms of Bay, he communicates so much through his audiovisual style -- a great example is PAIN & GAIN where he plays around with his own tropes (low end shots, slo mo, excess) to comment on the ludicrous, over-the-top lifestyle of the protagonists. It's an essay on indulgence, and 90% of it is communicated through visuals and sound, not through storyline. Through form.
Your defence of this crap (but not unenjoyable to me) film is pretty lazy and weak, Thor. Form is content! And that's it? That progressive argument should make us all fall at the altar of Bay and worship is almighty Content of Form! I could film a series of sh!ts I take on the toilet, edit them together and fire up a series. Form is content. Wouldn't make it any more enjoyable to watch though! It would still be CRAP!!! (haha, see what I did there).
That progressive argument should make us all fall at the altar of Bay and worship is almighty Content of Form!
Not really, but one should at the very least acknowledge form's meaningful existence. Then we can discuss Bay untill we're blue in the face. Fortunately, Bay has been adopted and appreciated among cineastes over the last couple of decades, people who see the true auteur values in his work and don't merely dismiss it as pap. That's comforting.
I think there's a link between arthouse directors like Godard and mainstream directors like Bay. Widely different in most things, but a common link in using the film medium to more than just storytelling. To highlight form in one way or another. For Godard, it was a political project to highlight the transparency of classical film form, for Bay it's more about creating a visceral experience; to create these setpieces that have their own innate value. So then when he goes all "meta" in PAIN & GAIN, putting all his trademarks at the front, it's delightfully self-aware and celebratory.
Or it's just you taking garbage films that you enjoy and trying to make them something they're not, by applying scholarly and scientific terms and dressing them up in fancy words, to make it all sound so meaningful. I'm Calling BS!! You're forever trying to polish turds, Thor!
As I said, it's a relatively common thing to appreciate Bay as an auteur these days, in cineaste circles. I'm not the only one doing it. Bay bashing is really (and thankfully) a remnant of the distant past. The net is full of such articles, here are two of them:
It's not Bay Bashing if, beyond a film or two, he's made an endless stream of noisy, empty pieces of trash cinema! It's just calling things what they are. What are cine-arses anyway?
I love to hate Michael Bay, so this a keystone film for that. Yeah he's brilliant at shooting action, but when the dial is ripped to 12 it gets exhausting. Bloated and loud and it never really lets up. The love interest is iffy at best, and that crap at the end about Daddy you were always my hero! is LOL. There's no redemption amongst the band of misfits. They're OTT to the point of stupidity. Cliche 101. Another thing is dad sacrificing himself for his son-in-law is LOL. He still thinks he's an idiot. The script requires there to be redemption. That's all. Willis is still the same stubborn prick he was when the film started. 
