9. Terrible, Clichéd Camerawork
Sweeping shots of absolutely nothing, slo-mo every time there's a gunshot, explosion or any loud noise of anything at all and unnecessary close-ups of characters' faces are just some of the things that Michael Bay would do well to avoid in his new Transformers movie. There's also the following mart video by Scott Laningham that talks about the Baywalk characters slowly strutting into focus with only their silhouettes visible against the smoke and haze with cool phallic objects clutched firmly in their hands. Bay fails to understand that audiences stopped appreciating this kind of thing with the onset of the 21st Century. Slo-mo is no longer cool unless it's done by Edgar Wright in an ironic way, taking a dig at all the movies that ever employed this technique to seem cool. The camera needs to be used; not just placed somewhere to capture glitterati. There are things that the camera ought to record in an action sequence and things that the camera ought not to. A shot of Will Smith's hind as he jumps across gunfire falls squarely within the latter category.