The live-action Transformers movies aren’t really what you’d call “beloved.” Despite making a lot of money, most of them aren’t especially well-regarded critically, and fans of the original property don’t exactly take to them well. They occupy a weird space in Hollywood wherein those initial five movies actively didn’t care in any fashion about being disliked. Here’s a series that did its own thing for a full decade, and if you didn’t groove with them, they basically said that’s on you and went about their business.
Now on one hand, there’s something to be said for a blockbuster franchise that just doesn’t care what people think. On the other hand, that lack of care is how you wind up with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, potentially the most confounding, bonkers sequel to ever exist in the modern movie era. Originally released on June 24, 2009, it constantly feels like it’s moving to the beat of its own drum, except it’s split off from the rest of the band and is a full block away without even realizing it yet. The end result is something that can’t help but be fascinating, because you can see clearly how everything got so incredibly tangled up.
Revenge was pre-visualized and written ahead of the mid-2000s writer and director strikes, and it shows, because it only really calms the hell down during its action scenes. Whenever a fight or chase isn’t happening… well, even with a curve applied to this franchise, this is an odd one. The original Transformers had its tone shifts and digressions, but Revenge has more of them, and at a more consistent clip. From baby Transformers to Decepticons disguising themselves as sexually aggressive college girls and everything to do with Skids and Mudflap, the movie’s borderline relentless in what it puts on screen. That feeling can be used to good effect, particularly in Michael Bay’s hands—go watch Ambulance as an example—and there’s some moments that get there. But too often, all the sound and fury clashes against one another, so it’s not entirely surprising that 15 years later, it keeps its title as the worst of a truly uneven franchise.
Bay tried leaving the franchise after 2011’s Dark of the Moon, but the call of the Chinese box office was too good to resist, and he returned to helm Transformers: Age of Extinction. That movie released on June 27, 2014, and functioned as a soft reboot of the franchise, with Optimus and Bumblebee serving as the only returning cast members while Mark Wahlberg tags in as their human buddy as the CIA hunts down all remaining Transformers regardless of allegiance. Oh, and the Dinobots are there because they liven up action scenes just by being robot dinosaurs that spew fire and stampede over anything in their path.
Somehow, Extinction is maybe the most awake Bay’s been with these movies since the first. Some of that can just be owed its setup; ditto how much more seriously the movie takes its chief CIA bad guys and Transformer bounty hunter Lockdown, tasked with capturing Optimus Prime. He looks great, he’s got a killer musical theme behind him, and he just carries himself so differently from everyone else. And just when you think this series couldn’t get any more up its own ass, it pivots to science fantasy by introducing the Transformers’ creators and turning Optimus into a knight. I wouldn’t call Age of Extinction a perfect version of itself, but it’s maybe the only sequel in this series that doesn’t feel hamstrung or twisted into being something else by forces outside of its control.
More interestingly, both this and Revenge of the Fallen have something to say about the Transformers movies and the key figure behind the camera. The first Transformers movie wasn’t a fluke, and Revenge showed how the summer movie season is fated to be filled with big, usually action-oriented IP tentpoles to be seen by millions. This movie was a look at Bay’s life, as represented by Sam Witwicky falling back in with the Transformers after just a few days at college. Driving that home further is Paramount’s output that summer season, which also included Star Trek and GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Go back through the studio’s summer movie output from 2009 to now: with some exceptions, if it wasn’t a Transformers movie, the studio had a Marvel, Star Trek, or Mission Impossible filling its summer slot. (In some cases, there were two or three from that list!)
By that same token, Age of Extinction has a subplot about a tech giant trying to make Transformers owned by the military using the corpses of Transformers killed by the CIA. Stanley Tucci’s character literally tells the Autobots they’re no longer needed—that can apply to Bay, who still holds a producer credit on the more recent films after leaving the director’s chair with 2017’s The Last Knight. Eventually, Age of Extinction posits that no, Bay is still needed with these movies, even if it’s just to make things blow up real good. (Which, yeah, he makes things blow up real good.) Seven movies into a 17-year-old franchise, only three directors have touched this series, and directors Travis Knight and Stephen Caple Jr. still have to play by Bay’s rules that he didn’t really intend to set.
The relationship between the filmmaker and these movies is fascinating, largely in part because of his dogged determination to not care about the Transformers. An argument can be made that he doesn’t need to: Moon and Extinction made over $1 billion each, and the property’s continued existence can be owed to him. The 2018 Bumblebee and last year’s Rise of the Beasts set up a new continuity and have done solid enough at the box office, but they haven’t fully escaped Bay’s shadow. Bumblebee may be a reboot, but it owes a lot to that 2007 movie, and Rise of the Beasts borrowed some Bay energy, but couldn’t fully harness it. Say what you will about the guy, the dude brought something to the proceedings that made them inherently watchable, even when they’re actively offensive or annoying you.
Can the Transformers movies escape Michael Bay? It’s unclear, though Paramount and Hasbro will surely keep trying, with or without GI Joe thrown somewhere into the mix. What’s more clear is that his movies have some real staying power, and in their best moments, they remind you why they were so popular back in the day. And at their worst… well, at least things exploded and you got to hear a cool Linkin Park song over the credits.
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