Transformers: Age Of Extinction - 10 Ways Michael Bay Stole Your Money
2. Product Placement
Had Part 4 built to something besides more fights or offered any dramatic tension it mightve been palatable, but in the hands of master bungler Bay, its like watching the same cartoon on an endless loop, only with more advertising. In an attempt to deliver the most pimped-out movie of 2014, Bay drapes product banners across buildings, has his actors drink brand soda and stages an action sequence around a Victorias Secret truck. Theres even a sequence where Mark Wahlberg pauses during a chase scene for a Bud Light, holding the bottle right up to camera. What kind of filmmaker advertises alcohol to a PG-13 audience? The kind that Bill Hicks spent the early 90s railing against, a soulless and irresponsible corporate puppet who wont rest until hes placed a dollar sign on everything on this planet. The comic had a particular term for those people. He called them Satans Little Helpers.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
