Master of mayhem Michael Bay continues to split opinions

Transformers: The Last Knight may not be rating high in online reviews but it's still expected to win the battle of the box office this Eid weekend.

Transformers: The Last Knight is expected to top the box office this weekend. Courtesy Paramount Pictures

The Last Knight is the fifth movie in director Michael Bay's Transformers movie franchise and the critical response is already predictably dismissive – the words "horrible" and "messy" feature in the earliest reactions to the movie.

It is not unusual for Bay’s work to attract derision from reviewers. A look on online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reveals an almost unbroken chain of green “Rotten” splats for his directorial efforts – and his work as a producer doesn’t fare any better.

Particular low points include a 7 per cent rating for 2014 movie Ouija, which he produced, and 18 per cent for Age of Extinction, the fourth film in the Transformers series, also from 2014, which he directed and produced.

Then there was the Second World War drama Pearl Harbor. The 2001 movie has a 25 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was so bad that South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone dedicated an entire song to its awfulness in their puppet comedy, Team America: World Police (2004).

Bay is an easy target for ridicule. His high-octane, explosion-filled action romps rarely offer much in the way of a cerebral challenge, his scripts often verge on the nonsensical and, as demonstrated by Ben Affleck's turn in Pearl Harbor, even capable actors can be reduced to wooden performances under his tutelage.

Yet audiences love his work. You can throw as many accusations of producing lowest- common-denominator popcorn fodder at Bay as you like, but he has some pretty effective ammunition to throw back at those who sneer – not least the fact that he is the fifth-highest-grossing director in movie history. His films have made almost US$6 billion (Dh22bn) since his big-screen debut with Bad Boys (1995).

Steven Spielberg sits top of the box-office table, with receipts topping the $9bn mark, but he had a 20-year head start on Bay, beginning when he invented the very concept of the modern blockbuster with Jaws in 1975.

Cinephiles can scoff, but the latest Transformers movie will win the battle of the box office this weekend. Bay knows exactly what he is doing: from those low camera angles that make every scene look larger than life and the incessant fast cutting that leaves little time for viewers to pause for breath (or consider the plot holes), to those endless explosions, he has audiences well and truly under his thumb.

The Transformers franchise alone has earned almost $3bn at the global box office and the new film is certain to add another substantial chunk of change to that total. Add to that the likes of Bad Boys, The Rock, Armageddon – and the list goes on.

Few of his films have earned much in the way of critical appreciation but the box-office numbers are a studio accountant’s dream.

Bay misses no opportunity to make his movies as appealing as possible to as many people as he can – for example, he set much of Transformers: Age of Extinction in China to appeal to the world's second-biggest cinema marketplace, while keeping existing international fans hooked with the return of robotic favourites Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and the rest, with Mark Wahlberg as the human lead.

It worked – the film became the highest-grossing movie in Chinese box office history.

Whatever you might think of Bay’s work, there is no denying that there will be plenty of takers for the latest Transformers movie, as fans revel in its sensory-assaulting glory, regardless of whether the plot makes much sense.

Love or hate his work, and there are many good arguments on both sides, the return of Optimus Prime and company will probably add the better part of a billion dollars to Bay’s box-office total.

Just don’t expect him to give up his director’s chair anytime soon.

• Transformers: The Last Knight will be in cinemas from Thursday