Bay-hem: Transformers director Michael Bay on the art of blowing things up

NO ONE has ever accused Transformers director Michael Bay — who loves to blow stuff up — of being subtle. Here are five of his best explosive scenes.

IT was once said of director Baz Luhrmann that he couldn’t see a nuance without calling security for it to be thrown off set. In the unlikely event that Michael Bay ever found one, no doubt he would have it bayoneted, machinegunned and finished off with a tactical nuke just to make sure.

Yes, no one ever accused Bay of being subtle — but when it comes to action scenes, not many do it better. He knows full well he’s likely never to win an Oscar — and he couldn’t give a stuff.

“They have said Michael Bay is the death of cinema, Michael Bay is the Devil,’’ Bay once told Hit. “It used to bother me, but now I’m used to it. Most critics don’t like popcorn movies. I’m not making movies for critics — I’m making movies for people to be entertained.’’

And entertained they have been. Despite being frequently savaged by critics, Bay’s movies have made well over $3 billion at the box office, with the Transformers series taking up a good chunk of that.

His vision ... director Michael Bay demonstrates for Nicola Peltz how the “hand” of a Transformer will attempt to snatch and capture her on the set of Transformers: Age of Extinction.

He’s tough on his actors, he stands his ground with studios and above all he thinks big.

“I’ve been doing these movies a long time,” said Bay recently of the new Transformers movie. “When all is said and done maybe 3500 people will have worked on this movie. It’s one day at a time. You can’t panic. My pep talk to everyone is: This is when the pro s--- starts and separates the men from the boys.”

Love him or loathe him, few directors have inspired their own cinematic term — Bay-hem — which the Urban Dictionary describes as: “The cinematic conceit of blowing s--- up on a large scale, in slow motion and (usually) at sunset.”

In Transformers: Age of Extinction, Bay takes to the concept to a global level, laying waste to several cities across several continents, but here’s how he worked his way up.

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GOODBYE PARIS — ARMAGEDDON

When a giant asteroid is threatening the Earth’s very existence — only Bruce Willis, his motley crew of deep-core drillers and an Aerosmith power balled can save the day. And when a few smaller meteorites herald the arrival of the big momma, people are gonna get hurt. But you can’t help wonder whether he rather enjoyed laying waste to Paris — Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and all. Sure, the cheese-eating surrender monkey and Les Americains have had their differences over the years — including over the then-imminent Iraq War — but did the City of Light really deserve that?

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BOMBS AWAY — PEARL HARBOR

Historians cringed and survivors were up in arms at Bay’s overblown (literally) take on the 1942 attack on Pearl Harbour by Japanese bombers. Even less discerning punters objected to the bum-numbing length, clocking in at over three hours, and the turgid love triangle between Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale. And wrong is it may be, audiences were actually eagerly awaiting the ordnance to start raining down if it meant an end to the risible dialogue and interminable smouldering. For good reason too, factually inaccurate though it may have been (“it’s certainly not meant to be a history lesson,” said producer Jerry Bruckheimer), it was certainly impressive, with dive-bombing planes, flying bodies and sinking ships. It also used “bomb cam” to striking effect — an eerie reflection of the televised drone and missile strikes to come from hi-tech weapons in the war on terror.

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THE REAL DEAL — BAD BOYS 2

The first Bad Boys movie in 1995 was an unexpected hit, making US$140 million from its US$19 million budget as well as superstars out of debutant director Michael Bay and its two leads Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. And in Bay-world, bigger is better, so he went all out for the even more successful 2003 sequel. For the finale, in which the two buddy cops take down the unhinged Cuban drug lord Tapia, the studio saw an ad in trade mag Variety offering a film crew the chance to demolish an actual, unfinished mansion in Florida, which was due to be subdivided. Music to Bay’s ears — and the crew spent a month gussying the place up — so they could it blow it up for real.

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CREATE AND DESTROY — THE ISLAND

Remember The Island? That’s OK — not many do. Until last year’s Pain and Gain, it was Bay’s least successful movie since the first Bad Boys. The 2005 sci-fi thriller had an interesting premise not unlike the critically adored 2010 drama with Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan, Never Let Me Go — what if we all had clones, specifically created to service our ageing and failing bodies? While The Island also had a pair of credible leads in Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson (who probably neglect to mention it on their CVs these days), it also had a lot more car chases and explosions. The centrepiece was a jaw-dropping chase scene down a highway, and having tired of trashing cars, trucks, planes and spaceships, Bay invented a brand new kind of vehicle, a kind of flying motorbike. Presumably just so he could blow it up. Which he did.

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BALLS AND ALL — TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

Bay was like a kid in a toy store when he got hold of the Transformers franchise, based on Hasbro’s popular playthings from the ’80s. The concept of giant, battling, alien robots — who could and did change into various modes of Earthbound transport for reasons best known to themselves — offered endless opportunities for metal-clashing smackdowns on an epic scale. Even if they have all started to look rather samey four films in, the scene were the Constructicon Devastator (made up of smaller Decepticons don’t you know?) shredded the Pyramids still stands out. John Turturro, playing the comic relief secret agent Seymour Simmons, delivered the following line with an admirably straight face: “I am directly below the enemy’s scrotum.” In a tip to anatomical correctness, Bay had added a nice touch between the giant robot’s legs — a couple of swinging wrecking balls. Subtle.

Originally published as Bay-hem: Transformers director Michael Bay on the art of blowing things up