If all you know about Michael Bay is his Transformers movies, prepare! Transformers were all designed to get a specific age rating. Therefor he couldn't unleash the full bayhem onto those films. This one reminds Bad Boys with how gruesome it sometimes could be. People die brutally all the time in this film. Sometimes while having sex. Because Michael Bay. There was a scene of a guy pissing, then being shot to death, and finally falling into his piss. Because Michael Bay. There is a scene of a guy driving a car into a forklift and dying from a bit metal piece piercing through his chest. Because Michael Bay. There is a scene of a full camp of sick people and children being bombed by air raid. Because Michael Bay.
You know all this deep dive into Spielberg made me think about Michael Bay. You know that Michael Bay was trying once to make a serious movie? He went with slower pacing, more character, he tried to take everything more seriously. But then one day said "Screw it!" and made Perl Harbor. I wonder if Steven Spielberg is always trying to hold himself from doing another 1941. But once in a while feels like releasing himself a bit. Watching his animated movies such as Adventures Of Tintin and Ready Player One where he allows himself to be the action director he is, makes me wonder what kind of movie would that be if Steven Spielberg said "Screw it!".
I did watch kids cartoons. But it seems like kids these days are watching only kids cartoons. And it's a little bit of a problem. I spoke to a woman who had a 10 yr old son that refused to watch Transformers since it was not a kids cartoon. It was way too complex for him. Transformers. You know, Michael Bay's explosions caused by big robots. This was too complex for a 10 year old.
The movie has a very iconic car design that doesn't make much sense in the world of the film, unless you look at it from the perspective of this car being somewhat of a super-car. There are a lot of vertical roads in the movie and most cars have their middle sections rotate, so the people inside could still sit comfortably while the car goes up and down the roads. But there is a Lexus that the main character gets in the middle of the movie and it is just a normal car with 4 wheels. Maybe those are two different forms of transportation. Or maybe since it's a super-car, it is different. By the way, the car is actually real and is really made by Lexus as a concept car specifically for the movie. And it is called Lexus Minority. It also appears briefly in a movie by Michael Bay called The Island, which Spielberg produced.
There are only a handful of actors in the movie. But all of the teenagers are very good. Those are played wonderfully by Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson and Anthony Michael Hall. There is also the school's principal played by Paul Gleason which looks suspiciously like Ben Mendelsohn. And there's the janitor with the most wholesome serial-killer smile ever, played by John Kapelos. All these actors know what they are doing very well. And the acting in the movie is pretty much, I think, what holds it together. Because there isn't much else to see, to be honest.
Yes, the movie is weirdly focused on the sensory images. You would have shots of necks, or knees of pretty women. Or shots of the sea. Seemingly with no apparent reason. I don't know if Michael Mann is a fan of Lars Von Trier, but this movie feels like an action film directed by Lars Von Trier. And Lars Von Trier has explained his editing style as focused on emotion. Where they would erase everything that is not emotionally charged. And therefor keep the audience always emotionally engaged. And combined with the free camera style of directing that he employs, this looks rather interesting.
