Michael Bay

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006)
Rating: ★★★
Oct 21, 2007Backwoods Brutality
Prequel to the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, which sets out to tell the origin story of the cannibal family. New director Jonathan Liebesman pushes the gore and sadism to Torture Porn extremes
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Rating: ★★
Jun 30, 2011Live-Action Transformer Robots
The third of Michael Bay's Transformers films. While the human scenes opt for a ghastly miscalculated sense of humour, the effects houses are at the peak of their game, even if Bay allows them to drag the mass destruction out to a numbing excess
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I Am Number Four (2011)

I Am Number Four (2011)
Rating: ★
Feb 25, 2011Alien Teenager on Earth/Young Adult
Produced by Michael Bay and directed by the perpetually insipid D.J. Caruso, this is no more than a Young Adult high school version of Disney's Witch Mountain films concerning an alien teenager with psi powers
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The Purge (2013)

The Purge (2013)
Rating: ★★
Jun 8, 2013Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Film based around the improbable concept of a future where on one night of each year all crime including murder becomes permissible. While this promises a rich vein of satire, the film only emerges as a variant on Straw Dogs
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The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
Rating: ★★
Jul 18, 2014Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Slightly more interesting than its predecessor in that it takes the action out from gated communities into the streets, otherwise this offers just the same as The Purge – much in the way of heavy artillery and a patina of contemporary politics that have all the depth of a protest placard
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)
Rating: ★
Aug 9, 2014Comic-Book Superheroes
This reboot of the pop culture icons of 80s/90s is an ugly failure on almost every level. The Turtles I remember were hip, funky and bubbled with boyish enthusiasm; these Turtles seem sinister oversized creations, while the film's adrenalised over-production and emphasis on grit seems to have missed the essential element of fun
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Ouija (2014)

Ouija (2014)
Rating: ★★
Oct 26, 2014Ouija Board Unleashes a Malevolent Spirit
Blumhouse horror film based around the Parker Brothers boardgame. Modern multiplex horror films don't come more generic than this. On the other hand, you cannot deny that debuting director Stiles White creates some occasionally quite spooky moments, it's just that the rest of the show comes entirely by the numbers
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Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Rating: ★★
Jun 28, 2014Live-Action Transformer Robots
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other
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Project Almanac (2015)

Project Almanac (2015)
Rating: ★★★
Jan 31, 2015Found Footage Time Travel Film
A zero expectation film that turns out to be surprisingly good. Falling somewhere between Primer and Chronicle, this does a reasonable job of showing its time travel device in action and the unintended consequences
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The Purge: Election Year (2016)

The Purge: Election Year (2016)
Rating: ★★
Jul 24, 2016Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
The Purge was a routine film that caught on with audiences but the premise lacks the legs to be a franchise – for one, it is based on a future scenario that has zero plausibility. This makes paper-thin stabs in terms of social issues but all interest evaporates when the guns start blazing
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016)
Rating: ★★½
Jun 12, 2016Comic-Book Superheroes
Nobody has good things to say about the 2014 reboot of the Turtles. This sequel is stuck with its legacy – giant over-sized Turtles that lacked the cuteness of the originals; bitchy non-acting Megan Fox – but comes out winningly by doing one thing – emulating the spirit of the original cartoon series
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Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)
Rating: ★★
Nov 12, 2016Ouija Board Unleashes Malevolent Spirits
Blumhouse's Ouija didn't get many good reviews but they proceeded with a prequel here. This is automatically the better film from the outset by employing Mike Flanagan, behind amazing works like Absentia, Hush and The Haunting of Hill House, as director, even if it comes out as one of Flanagan's lesser works
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Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
Rating: ★½
Sep 23, 2017Live-Action Transformer Robots
The fifth of Michael Bay's Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
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A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place (2018)
Rating: ★★★★
Oct 13, 2018Survivors Unable to Make a Sound in the Aftermath of an Invasion
An uncommonly effective film that takes place in the aftermath of an invasion by creatures with ultra-sensitive hearing where the survivors must maintain an existence that requires not making the slightest sound. Director (also lead actor) John Krasinski uses the set-up to create unbearable tension
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The First Purge (2018)

The First Purge (2018)
Rating: ★★½
Mar 24, 2019The Origin of a Future That Permits One Night of Lawlessness
Blumhouse have handed the reigns of The Purge series to African-American filmmaker Gerard McMurray who takes the opportunity to get political and drag the series into the era of Black Lives Matter
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A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

A Quiet Place Part II (2020)
Rating: ★★½
Jul 10, 2021Survivors Unable to Make a Sound in the Aftermath of an Invasion
The first A Quiet Place was No 1 on this site’s Best of 2018 list. John Krasinski still pulls off great set-pieces a second time but reveals the pitfalls of trying to extrude a premise to make a sequel
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