10 Directors Who Could Take Over Transformers From Michael Bay

Justin Lin is the third Fast & Furious director to make this list, and there's definitely a reason for that: Transformers could learn a lot from that franchise.

They both want to be fun popcorn entertainment but, whilst Transformers lacks a consistent voice and takes itself too seriously, Fast & Furious eventually figured out exactly what it is and revamped itself into a series of self-deprecating rollercoaster rides. Lin was the director who figured this out, and surely he could do the same for the Autobots and Decepticons.

Lin's main strength beyond being able to stage ridiculous but inventive action sequences is that he knows how to balance character. His solo directorial debut Better Luck Tomorrow was an ensemble piece, and he brought forward that knowledge into his Fast & Furious movies and Star Trek Beyond.

He knows how to bring that sense of camaraderie and family to a team, and that's something Transformers is lacking: believable bonds between both its human and robot characters.

But ultimately, Lin's greatest strength is that he lacks pretension. He is very much in the game of making Hollywood fare, but he doesn't do so lazily or without a care for the audience. He makes crowd-pleasing movies, but he gives them enough substance to be more than just mindless and forgettable pablum. Transformers doesn't need to be high art, but it needs to be more than what it is now, and Justin Lin is acutely attuned to that mindset.