The term “vulgar auteurism” suits Michael Bay better than almost any other filmmaker. Loosely defined in the early 2010s, it’s more of an approach than it is a movement, describing the concept of taking commercial films generally considered to have little artistic value — big-budget Hollywood action movies, in this case — and analyzing them with the same lens as more highbrow works. When you look at him in this way, Michael Bay is absolutely an auteur: He has a distinctive visual style, as well as themes that pop up again and again in his films. It’s just that his preoccupations happen to be hot chicks, cool quips, flag-waving patriotism, and explosions. Lots of explosions.
Maybe that’s why Criterion released not one, but two Michael Bay movies in its early years: Both Armageddon and The Rock joined the collection before Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, for example. (There’s a fun fact for your next movie trivia night.) Of the two Criterion-approved Bay titles, The Rock is the better movie for newbies, in part because it’s got a better script. Both Quentin Tarantino and Aaron Sorkin did polish work on the screenplay, adding their distinctive voices to the meat-and-potatoes action plot. As a result, it’s full of witty dialogue — if you’ve ever wanted to hear Nicolas Cage and Tony Todd banter about Elton John just before one of them gets blown away by a rocket launcher, then this is the movie for you.
