The Michael Bay mystery - why so much plot?

The biggest puzzle when dealing with the critical fall out of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen involves the oft-repeated mantra that Michael Bay is only interested in his toys and gimmicks. It's allegedly all about fast cars, big guns, hot chicks, and explosions; all filmed in a saturated glow that makes everything look uber-shiny. Fair enough, but that isn't the big problem with either of the Transformers films. If Bay is only concerned with his fantasies and his toys (probably true), why must his films be filled with so much useless plot and failed character interaction? The fatal flaw with Transformers 2 wasn't the poor attempt at humor, the simplistic right-wing politics, the useless supporting characters, the poorly defined villain, or the often-incomprehensible action. The thing that killed the movie was the fact that there was an entire second act (post woods-fight scene and pre-Egypt) where absolutely nothing happens. The whole middle of the film is just plot and exposition.

For a movie that's just supposed to be giant robots killing each other, the movie has more plot than The Dark Knight or State of Play. We have the story arc of Sam and Michela unwilling to tell each other that they love each other, we have the military vs. bureaucrats plot line, we have the origin of the Fallen, the expansion of Transformers mythology, we have the protracted globe-trotting attempts to basically rewrite a story mistake (whoops... we killed Optimus Prime, how can we bring him back?). And none of the plot and none of the character interplay is the least bit entertaining (just why does Sam's college roommate stick around for the entire film?). Maybe it was a writers strike issue. Maybe Bay was just overcompensating; overdosing on plot to pretend like the movie actually has a reason outside of the robots killing robots spectacle. The tragedy is there's probably a pretty entertaining piece of crap 105-minute movie stuck inside that 149 minute bloat.

That's the irony. Michael Bay gets both praised and criticized for basically making bigscreen guy's fantasy pictures. But it's the inexplicable need to stuff his films with pointless asides that kills them. I'm guessing that he still wants to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. I'm sure the (unfair) reception of The Island still stings, as it was a brutal rebuke that told him to just go back to making Maxim: The Movie. Some free advice (because Bay of course cares what is said about him on Mendelson's Memos): if you want to make a real movie, make a real movie. You've done it before with The Rock. But don't wreck popcorn trash like Transformers by filling it with misguided attempts at respectability.

Scott Mendelson