10 Movies That Are Basically One Big Apology

Michael Bay's Transformers is the epitome of everything people hate about $200 million blockbusters - they're dumb, loud, bloated, and more-or-less assume that audience members are idiots.

Though the original 2007 film received scattered praise, the sequels were largely panned for their terrible scripts, cacophonous action, and frequently offensive attempts at "humour."

Considering that Transformers is primarily a franchise for young children, skewing the Bay movies towards hormonal teenage boys always felt like a cynical misstep, one finally corrected with the release of 2018's Bumblebee.

With Bay only involved as a producer, Bumblebee was basically the Transformers movie fans had been waiting for all along - gone was the painful comic relief and casual sexualisation of young women in favour of a genuinely sweet girl-and-her-pet-robot story.

Between the eye-popping action - namely a fantastic prologue set on Cybertron - and charming cast led by Hailee Steinfeld, Bumblebee was the breezy, sub-two-hour slice of tentpole escapism Transformers always should've been.

Though it's an incredibly low bar to clear, Bumblebee became the best-reviewed film in the series by far, if ironically also the lowest-grossing.