Michael Bay: Ranking His Movies From Worst To Best

Michael Bay

Michael Bay might be one of the most commercially successful directors working today, but he's also one of the most controversial and divisive. Marked out for his visually stunning set-pieces and gleefully over-the-top action, critics however frequently note that his films are archetypal instances of style over substance; rarely do his films amount to much story-wise, character-wise, or basic common sense-wise, causing some to label him as "the worst director ever". While this claim certainly isn't true, to call him an artist would probably be a misnomer; what the man does is efficiently craft frantic, audience-grabbing action flicks that reliably deliver the goods for the studios, even if they don't always do a whole lot for more discerning audiences. Here are Michael Bay's movies ranked from worst to best...

10. Pearl Harbour

Pearl Harbour Clearly trying to ape the success of James Cameron's Titanic, Bay takes another historical event that claimed a massive amount of lives, infuses it with a love story and hopes that the sheer majesty of it all will result in movie magic. Not quite. If Pearl Harbour did deliver some staggering set-pieces mid-film, it's all stymied by the overplayed love triangle plot central to the narrative, shot through with unenthusiastic performances from Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale. The action does deliver, but audiences will likely have started to nod off by the time this shows up - it all kicks off an hour into this three-hour slog - and one can't shake the inherent tackiness of the whole excursion. If Titanic was a more tasteful depiction of a real-life event, Harbour has turned its own into a whizz-bang, frenetic action movie spectacle that feels a little tasteless and insensitive. A more Spielberg-esque approach might have worked, but then, Bay is no Spielberg...
 
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Frequently sleep-deprived film addict and video game obsessive who spends more time than is healthy in darkened London screening rooms. Follow his twitter on @ShaunMunroFilm or e-mail him at shaneo632 [at] gmail.com.