The Disastrous New ‘Transformers’ Will Make You Beg for Michael Bay’s Return

It speaks volumes about our current creatively barren blockbuster landscape that Michael Bay, once the paragon of ugly, unbridled excess, now stands as a last bastion of auteurist style and invention.

Wither the director’s wanton flash, sizzle, stereotypes and jingoism, which seared the eyes, offended the ears and pummeled the spirit into weary submission? In the face of today’s Marvel-grade assembly line tentpoles, Bay’s egomaniacal odes to enormity resemble not only quaint relics of a bygone age (which, at the time, many were eager to see conclude), but exemplars of extravagant vision and skill, made by an artist whose gung-ho personality infused every frame of his juvenile, militaristic, sexualized spectaculars.

Confronted by the ludicrous prodigality of 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight (which remains, to date, the director’s fifth and final franchise entry), I wrote, “That Bay is capable of staging computerized pandemonium with this much rapid-fire scale, sound, and car-commercial sleekness is no small feat; good luck finding someone else who can take the reins of this Hasbro-based franchise.” Travis Knight’s 2018 Bumblebee spin-off proved that point to a tee, opting for a more heartfelt and muted approach that drained the action of its crazed lifeblood, and it’s doubly confirmed by Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which premieres June 9 in theaters.

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