1. Pearl Harbor - Michael Bay Massacres History; Replaces It With Terrible Movie (And Explosions)
In a perfect world, Pearl Harbor might have emerged as something along the lines of Titanic - schmalzy, perhaps, but still faithful and respectable of a tragedy that genuinely happened and holds a place in a lot of people's hearts. Sentimental or not, at least Titanic can be called a good movie, right? Instead Bay, renowned at the time for his explosively bombastic and unsubtle pictures, turned Pearl Harbor into a precursor to his Transformers movies: loud, incoherent, lacking sense or logic. And yet we often forget to ask ourselves: why Michael Bay? With the success of his other action-orientated movies, it makes some sense - but why hire a director who is known for his lacking plausibility to helm a movie that requires real emotional cues? "The film has been directed without grace, vision, or originality," said a confused Roger Ebert in his famous review. He also rallied against the way Bay treated history: no real context is given for the attacks, or war, or why anything is taking place. Stuff just happens in a bizarrely-realised vacuum - just like in every other movie that the man had directed before (and since). I'm not totally anti-Bay, though: the man has certain skills, I suppose, and it's not entirely ridiculous to suggest that he has some talent about him. I'm just surprised that not a single person sat down for a moment and considered what they were doing here: why did we hire the guy who directed Bad Boys to tell this story? Is it really a good idea to give something as sensitive and historically important as this one to the guy who helmed Armageddon? Like this movie-inspired version of Pearl Harbor (there is no history to be had), it doesn't make an inch of sense.
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