Film Criticism as Damned Praise

I’ve read more than my usual volume of film reviews lately, and the reason is one film specifically: Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

I’ve yet to read a positive write-up of Michael Bay’s latest entry into the franchise. Rather, I should say I’ve yet to read a review that actually made the film seem good. That hasn’t stopped a number of critics from giving the film positive scores.

Check the “fresh” reviews on RottenTomatoes. I did. This is what I learned:

You should see it even though it’s hateful and empty and preaches the worst kind of reactionary violence without even really meaning it. — Andrew O’Hehir, of Salon.com [Full Review]

He actually writes, at one point in the review, “It’s not worth doing, it’ll definitely make you sick and a lot of it will taste bad.” He’s making a metaphor for this movie. He’s recommending this experience to you.

I have to admit that during the times that I wasn’t feeling whatever intelligence the movie was pummeling out of me being actively insulted, I did kind of enjoy the spectacle. — Glenn Kenny, of MSN Movies [Full Review]

Any film that pummels anything out of you should probably achieve something utterly brilliant in the pummeling or be avoided at all costs.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon is among Mr. Bay’s best movies and by far the best 3-D sequel ever made about gigantic toys from outer space. — A.O. Scott, of the New York Times [Full Review]

See how clever Mr. Scott was being there. See how he limited it to only 3-D sequels made about gigantic toys from outer space, because there’s oh so many of those. He at least admits to his faint praise, then tries to say it’s not faint praise at all. The last line of his review: “I’m not judging, just describing.”¹ Oh bite me.

And then there’s Matt Goldberg at Collider.com, a friend of mine and one of the more under-appreciated film critics out there. I’m going to pick on Matt, mostly because I actually know him, and mostly because I think he can take it in stride.² Here are a few choice excerpts from his write-up about Dark of the Moon:

For the most part, Bay doesn’t care about character development, smart humor, or about making sure the plot holes aren’t so big that a Transformer could walk through them… there’s nothing in this movie to indicate that he cares about plot beyond its ability to lead him to a new action scene or cheap joke. You have to grind through 90 minutes of tedium to get to the chewy, chocolate-y center of Transformers: Dark of the Moon [which is] its final hour of destruction, [an] orgy of special effects and pyrotechnics. Swerving wildly between the insultingly stupid the ironically idiotic, Dark of the Moon is Bay at his worst and at his best. [Full review]

Now, I’ve cherry-picked from the review. Let me cop to that right now, but let me also invite you to read the entire thing. Seriously, read it and then come back and finish this post. I beg you to explain to me how Matt wrote all of that and then plucked a big fat B- onto the film. B-minus!

I’m absolutely open to hearing from any of the critics I’ve called out,³ explaining how they could write such harsh things about the movie and then give it a good rating. Remember, I’ve only quoted from reviews that are fresh according to RottenTomatoes. That means these critics are actually recommending you pay to go sit in a theater and be bombarded for two-and-a-half hours by the spectacle Michael Bay has conjured up. I just don’t understand it.

Maybe it’s because this is Michael Bay. This is the guy who won us over with mindless, but thrilling adventures in years past. He gave us Armageddon and Bad Boys (and a sequel that was even bigger, longer, and somehow better than the original). He gave us The Rock with Sean Connery in full-on bad ass mode.

I’ve been a Bay-defender in years past. People who lampooned him and wondered aloud why Criterion⁴ was wasting its time releasing special editions of his films always got an earful from me. I loved that he was making visual distinctive films, even if the distinction was an assault on our senses and a devil-may-care approach to the narrative. I implore you to seek out and read the essay included with the Criterion release of Armageddon, that explains the visual economy of a Michael Bay film.⁵

But even I had to take a moment to catch my breath when I read Matt Goldberg’s opening line: “A Michael Bay movie cannot be measured by the same standards as a normal movie.”⁶

Yes it can. It so absolutely can, and more than that, it so absolutely should. If you judge Michael Bay by the standards of normal movies, that’s how you know he’s an actual filmmaker with real talent doing interesting work. Set him apart, and he becomes a joke, a thing to be pawed at but never really engaged with.

Let’s say a person kills somebody. You call him a murderer and an animal, because we want to think a murderer is special. We want to believe a human being couldn’t be so cruel, so callous, so heartless. But it’s humanity that allows us to judge. It’s humanity that tells us what is right and wrong. An animal doesn’t know any better. A monster is just being itself. If you refuse to call the murderer a human, you take away your foundation to judge them.

So it is with Michael Bay.⁷ If you try to set him on some other level of filmmaker, that’s just taking every criticism you then apply and devaluing it from the start. Michael Bay has made some amazing films. He’s also made three Transformers films, two of which I can personally vouch are the worst things served up on a silver screen in a decade. At least.

Why can’t we just say that?