Michael Bay instilled in me an understanding that as a director you do not have to be the greatest story teller, just the greatest visionary and with his first Transformers film, he achieved that. The first time I watched that film, I came out of Peckham Multiplex and every new car looked like it was going to turn into a Transformer. Do you know how great of a director you have to be to force audiences to take the film outside of the cinema and into reality? He's a genius. I don't care what anyone says. I've watched Transformers as a child, my grandfather would wake me up early on Saturday mornings to watch it on telly. This story is dear to me and I think, despite all the super Transformer stan's moaning and groaning, Bay did an excellent job.
HOWEVER. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen was absolute bullshit.
I watched Transformers like 1 million times. I think I burned a hole in my DVD from watching it so much. I watched it with the director's commentary on, because I needed to know everything about that film and the way Michael Bay created it, I watched it on mute, I watched it with the screen blank so I could get the fullness of that absolutely, second-to-none sound engineering. I loved it ok? So when I paid my good, hard earned money at Streatham Odeon to watch Transformers 2, I was traumatised and horrified, a mix I like to call "TRAUMIFIED" at the end product. How could Michael Bay betray me like that? HOW COULD YOU?!?!
Now, with Transformers 3 Dark of the Moon, he has the opportunity to redeem himself. I trust Michael Bay. I trust his over use of orange and teal grading. I trust his continuous disregard for storytelling. I trust this man, because in all of that, in all his shortcomings his visionary helps create films that I want to watch.
Enjoy!
Dx
PS. I love John Turturro as Simmons. I love all the actors in this film, but Turturro's style gets me going.