The music for the film is made by the legendary Michael Giacchino who also got a cameo in the movie as one of the police officers. At some point John Williams was brought as a guest to help Giacchino conduct. Giacchino admitted trying to sound like John Williams for this movie. Because frankly, J.J. Abrams was trying to shoot the movie like Spielberg would do. Though he added enough of his own touches, such as a dutch angle to make it feel more unique.
The music for the movie is done by an absolute legend Michael Giacchino. Just look him up on Wikipedia. This guy rivals John Williams.
If you want to distill the essence of Michael Bay, you should not look any further than his Verizon Commercial. A 30 second long explosive fest of absolute Bayhem, directed by Michael Bay and starring Michael Bay. He knows that he is a meme. And he delivers on that meme.
If you look at 1941 today it feels like a Michael Bay movie. Explosions are everywhere. Gun shots fired at the sky for no reason ( which was the comedic punchline of the film ). Chase scenes crash through paint factories to add color to the spectacle. A fight scene happens in the middle of a huge dance number involving one bazillion extras. Everything is huge and you feel like it's way too huge.
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.
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.