When Michael Bay made his first movie, Bad Boys, in 1995, he instantly became one of the defining blockbuster directors. From his sunset-washed visuals, to his epic car chases, to his hilarious buddy comedy pairings, to his completely insane action sequences, you always know a Michael Bay movie. As he releases his latest thrill-ride Ambulance in cinemas Friday, we look at the films that made Bay a blockbuster behemoth.
Bad Boys (1995)
Bay’s movie career got off to a high-octane start with one of the most beloved buddy action comedies of the 90s. Bay showed his knack for spotting movie stars by choosing Will Smith and Martin Lawrence to play detectives/best friends tracking down a murderous drug kingpin. Before Bad Boys, both Smith and Lawrence were better known for their TV shows, but their action and comedy chops in Bad Boys rocketed both to superstardom. Finding future A-listers has always been a skill of Bay’s. He turned Nicolas Cage into an action hero with The Rock. He did the same with Ben Affleck in Armageddon. And in Ambulance he gives Emmy-winner Yahya-Abdul Mateen II a role that will continue to elevate his movie star status.
The Rock (1996)
There’s such a simple idea at the heart of The Rock: a rogue general (Ed Harris) is threatening to unleash nerve gas on San Francisco and only two men, a chemist (Nicolas Cage) and a former SAS Captain (Sean Connery), can stop him. The whole movie is a thrilling race against the clock to stop the attack. Cranking up the tension is one of Bay’s biggest skills as a director, something he puts to use again in Ambulance, as two criminals try to save the life of a cop they mistakenly shot, because if he dies then both their lives are over too.
Armageddon (1998)
If you want spectacle, call Michael Bay. He made one of the most famous blockbusters of all time with Armageddon, the story of a ragtag group of oil-drillers sent into space to destroy a meteor that’s headed straight for Earth. Bay knows just how to hit the tone of movies like this, treating a bonkers idea with the right combination of seriousness and humour. More than anything, he knows how to milk that idea for maximum cinematic impact, with scenes of asteroids destroying cities and Bruce Willis destroying asteroids in space. It’s the ultimate in blockbuster entertainment. For every film he makes, Bay makes sure you have the best time possible.
Transformers (2007)
Michael Bay loves car chases. Whether it’s Burnett and Lowry screaming around Miami in Bad Boys, or a nail-biting police chase through the glistening streets of Los Angeles in Ambulance, Bay always makes his car-chases so intense that you struggle to breathe until they’re over. He elevated them to a whole new level in Transformers, with cars that turn into robots and start punching each other mid-drive. With groundbreaking special effects, Bay turned a 1980s toy line into one of the all-time biggest movie franchises, with seven movies so far and almost $5 billion in box office receipts.
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi (2016)
In 2016, Bay turned his attention to the real-life story of the security team who risked their lives to protect an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi when it came under attack from militants. It was a big change for Bay, taking on a true story and putting the fiction aside. Bay took all his action expertise and married it to gripping drama, to recreate one of the most shocking events of the 2010s.
Ambulance (2022)
Bay’s 15th movie brings together everything he’s learned from almost three decades in movie-making. It’s the story of war veteran Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) who asks his adoptive brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), a career criminal, to help raise $231,000 to pay for his wife’s cancer treatment. Instead of lending him the money, Danny suggests Will join him on a $32 million bank robbery, which goes disastrously wrong when a cop gets shot. Desperate to keep the cop alive, to avoid murder charges and maybe save themselves, Will and Danny hijack an ambulance, holding paramedic Cam (Eiza Gonzalez) hostage as she tries to save the cop while every other cop in LA chases the ambulance through the city. It has the buddy chemistry of Bad Boys, the tension of The Rock, the spectacle of Armageddon, the edge-of-your-seat car chases of Transformers, and the grit of 13 Hours. It is, in short, vintage Michael Bay.
Ambulance is in cinemas nationwide on Friday – book your tickets now
The post Best of Bay: 6 of the director’s defining blockbusters appeared first on NME.
