Transformers’ Michael Bay is Spielberg 2.0 and a genius filmmaker – he should be revered not reviled

He may have been too busy blowing things up to make his own versions of ‘Schindler’s List’ or ‘The Fabelmans’, but Bay is a technical genius and one of our most important filmmakers, writes Geoffrey Macnab

Megan Fox in Michael Bay’s 2009 pyrotechnic cyborg extravaganza ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ (Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock)

Whenever a Michael Bay movie hits cinemas, the cash tills begin to shake. His films have made more than $3.6bn in the US alone – and billions more around the globe. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which he produced and which crashes onto UK screens later this month, is likely to continue a seismic winning streak that stretches back almost 30 years to his debut feature, Bad Boys, in 1995.

Bay is arguably the most successful filmmaker of his generation – and yet he is also one of the most reviled. Critics tend to hate his work. He has multiple nominations for the Golden Raspberry awards, given to the worst pictures of the year, and the Alliance of Women Film Journalists once nominated him for a Sexist Pig of the Year award. Thus far, Oscar and Bafta voters have been giving him a very wide berth (although his films do sometimes pick up accolades for their VFX or sound editing).

This is the Bay paradox. He is a genius, but he makes loud and objectionable movies. His technique is breathtaking. Even his detractors acknowledge that you won’t find many other filmmakers with his pyromaniacal flair for blowing things up on camera or his ability to stage chases, heists and gunfights. What most of his films have lacked, though, are those qualities that reviewers tend to pick up on: depth of characterisation, emotion, empathy, humour, lyricism.