Michael Bay: Most movie critics are ‘born with the anti-fun gene’

Director Michael Bay has never been a critics’ favorite, but the thrashing he received for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” was the worst of his eight-film career. Reviewers ridiculed the new sequel about battling robots as ‘beyond bad’ (Rolling Stone), ‘bewildering’ and ‘sloppy’ (the Village Voice) and ‘a great grinding garbage disposal of a movie’ (the Detroit News). The early notices were so uniformly disapproving that after Bay’s traditional opening-night dinner party at Beverly Hills’ Mr. Chow, the 44-year-old director wondered aloud to executives at distributor Paramount Pictures about the possible impact of the drubbing. He needn’t have worried: Rarely have critics been more disconnected from what audiences want and love. Since it arrived early Wednesday just past midnight, ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ sold more tickets in its first five days -- an estimated $201.2 million -- than any other movie in Hollywood history except one: last year’s ‘The Dark Knight’ (which grossed $203.8 million in its first five days and went on to earn $533.3 million at the domestic box office). By the end of this week, ‘Transformers’ likely will surpass ‘Up’ and ‘Star Trek’ to become this summer’s most-attended release.’I think they reviewed the wrong movie. They just don’t understand the movie and its audience. It’s silly fun,’ Bay said over the weekend of the many ‘Transformers’ critical detractors. ‘I am convinced that they are born with the anti-fun gene. The reviews are just so vicious. A lot of them are more personal than anything else.’ His film’s strong debut cements Bay’s reputation as one of the town’s most consistently commercial directors. A colorful personality who drives fast cars, dates knockout models, wears his shirts unbuttoned and is infamously demanding on and off his movie sets, the boyish Bay possesses one of the highest average theatrical grosses among Hollywood’s best-known directors. Bay’s seven movies (‘The Rock,’ ‘Armageddon,’ ‘Pearl Harbor,’ ‘The Island,’ the two ‘Bad Boys’ films and the earlier ‘Transformers’) before the sequel averaged $152.5 million in domestic theaters, according to the website Box Office Mojo. That places him alongside ‘Transformers’ producer Steven Spielberg (average gross: $156.9 million as a director), ‘Titanic’s’ Jim Cameron ($163.8 million) and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ ’ Peter Jackson ($159 million). What’s more, all of Bay’s previous movies have grossed more overseas than they have domestically. Movie review aggregator websites assigned the film average scores ranging from 21% positive to 40% positive, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the sequel the lowest marks in Bay’s career. Audiences saw the movie quite differently. At the AMC Puente Hills 20 on Friday night, the majority of the film’s showings were sold out, and some ‘Transformers’ fans waited two hours to get into an open screening. Fred Aldaco, 23, was visiting from Phoenix, and said Bay had respected the Transformers legacy, which includes toys, comic books and an animated television series. ‘He did a good job with it,’ Aldaco said. ‘They took their time and knew how they were going to do the story. You can hardly say that about any other comic book’ movie director. Although La Puente’s 27-year-old Diana Salazar didn’t know that Bay had directed the movie, she praised its execution. ‘It had a lot of action. It was really interesting to see the good fight scenes,’ she said. ‘Either I like the plot or I don’t. It makes absolutely no difference who the director is.’Paramount’s national exit polling revealed several notable facts. While the first ‘Transformers’ film, released in 2007, skewed 60-40 toward men over women, the split in the new film was more even at 54% male, 46% female. More than 90% of those surveyed said the new movie was as good as or better than the first film... READ THE REST -- John Horn