Michael Bay – Ranking His Films From Worst To Best

9. Pearl Harbour

Bay has always drawn comparisons €“ seemingly by design €“ to James Cameron. They both have reputations for being demanding, bullying tyrants that still get impressive results. Bay went a step further by trying to capture some of Titanic's Oscar glory for himself, which explains the existence of Pearl Harbor. He took a tragic real-life event €“ which was already preloaded with explosions €“ inserted a soppy love triangle and then popped it in the oven while getting his Best Director speech ready. All that effort was in vain since critics and audiences hated it, and the only directing nod came from the Razzies. Despite the impressive pyrotechnics, the movie only offered up one-dimensional characters, a romance with all the heat of a service station sausage roll and a total lack of respect for the real event. Bay€™s attempts to elicit genuine emotions were embarrassing at best, and if anyone was crying at the end it was because they€™d just wasted three hours of their lives on it. Cuba Gooding, Jr. was the best part of Pearl Harbor by a wide margin, and when Cuba Gooding, Jr. is the best thing about your movie you've gone seriously wrong somewhere.
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Handsome. Charismatic. Intelligent. Noble. Witty. I'm none of these things, but I'm a half decent writer, I guess.