Island, The
If Michael Bay ever offers you a lift, think twice. I would be quite cautious about getting into a car with a man with such an unbridled adolescent love for destroying things – you really couldn't trust that he wouldn't crash it, y'know, just because it'd look so fucking cool!!! If Michael Bay wasn't a filmmaker and didn't have this avenue for blowing up lots and lots of shit then I seriously think he might have considered a career as a terrorist.
I thought it was funny in The Hulk how in his green rage-filled persona the titular character would go on rampages that would result in the repeated destruction of U.S. military planes, helicopters and tanks – yet after the explosions ceased, as not-so-happy Hulk was bouncing away to his next scuffle, you could hear a tiny voice speaking over a two-way radio saying something like "Phew, that was close, but I'm okay." This kept happening throughout the movie, becoming increasingly hilarious each time. They did this, of course, because they didn't want it to seem that their hero was capable of killing someone – even in his alter-ego rampages (kind of against the point of the whole thing if you ask me) .
Michael Bay cares not about such things. That's not the Michael Bay way. If you've ever watched any of his work, Bad Boys, The Rock, Pearl Harbour, Bad Boys 2, then you might have picked up on a slightly sociopathic streak of his that sees innocent civilians killed by the busload in his movies. Even the heroes of his films probably kill about 100 people just as collateral damage from one of the many car chases, grenade explosions, shoot-outs, etc., that they caused – all in the name of good, of course. No one notices this because, well, why would you when there's some quality explosions to look at? That's the Michael Bay way, you see.
The Island was supposed to be the film where Bay soothed these tendencies and actually attempts to introduce a plot, characters and, shockingly, some thought-provoking themes. He does this in the fashion of a little child who has been told he can only go outside to play if he cleans his room first. A child who frantically wants to get this boring chore out of the way quickly so he does a completely half-assed job of it, hurriedly throwing things under his bed and stuffing them in his closet, impatiently waiting for the moment where he gets to go outside…and burn ants or tip cows or whatever it is Michael Bay did as a child. After the boring, and frankly, totally un-thought-provoking start (if you didn't know, the characters are all clones who are kept in a blandly futuristic compound until their original counterpart needs a leg, an eye, a liver – oh the murky ethical dilemma!!!) the film just becomes a normal Bay flick. Lots of running, cars flipping and crashing everywhere, buildings toppling, bad one-liners – all good news if you loved Bad Boys. Hey – the man does destroy things impressively, I will definitely give him that, but it does get a bit monotonous when the only lines Ewan and Scarlett have in the second half of the film are multiple uses of the words "Run!" and "Now!" I exaggerate only slightly.
Bay's next film is Transformers , the live-action version of the popular children's cartoon/toy range. When I say that he will most likely destroy my beloved childhood memories, I mean it both figuratively, and literally.