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Welcome to the Flying Monkey's first edition of the "Who's Worse?" series! In this series, we will pin two movie entities against each other to find out who's the cream of the crap. It can be directors, actors, movies, porno's, hell, pretty much anything. And, since the lackluster blockbuster franchise that is Transformers has a new installment coming out in a week, we (Donny and Mike) figured that we would have our first contest between the two biggest box office money whores of the last 20 years. So with that, we ask, Who's Worse? Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich?
We figured this would be the best choice, as these two directors have had very similar career paths: They both make movies th, at shatter not only the box office, but shatter the will to live of critics. So which pile of Hollywood horse manure stinks more?
M. Night Shyamalan's
Well, I'm inclined to agree, he is the worst thing to happen to movies since... like... Ever. Seriously, The Happening, Signs, The Last Airbennn.... Oh FUCK YOU M NIGHT!!!
Ok, I've cooled off... sooo... Where should we start? Why don't we talk about these two directors, shall we?
Michael Bay first... Donny, Go!
Well first off we must disclaim that we are only talking about films these two directed, so any cameo roles, producer or writing credits will not be considered. Anywhooser Michael Bay's career started in the mid 90's with a pair of mildly successful action films in Bad Boys and The Rock. Then came his first true blockbuster with the snoozer that was Armageddon. Then came the start of critical backlash as by the time 2001's Pearl Harbour came around critics were tired of his special effects antics, and likely his obsession with Ben Affleck. After restoring some (very little really) goodwill with Bad Boys 2 he went on to make his biggest box office disappointment with The under 40 million grossing The Island... But don't worry then came the very profitable yet seldomly liked Transformers triliogy which is returning for a 4th installment this summer, but was seperated by 2013 pile-o'-crap Pain & Gain starring Transformers 4 actor Marky Mark.
Ok, Mike, Roland Emmerich, go!
Well, Roland Emmerich has the reputation of being the poor man's Michael Bay, and what a legacy to have! He started in the early 90's with two moderately successful films, Universal Soldier and Stargate. His first smash hit came in 1996 with one of the greatest popcorn movies of all time, Independence Day. Unfortunately, he couldn't recreate that magic two years later when he raped the Godzilla franchise, which had a great box-office run, but was otherwise the Godzilla equivalent of Batman & Robin. He managed to regain some credibility with The Patriot in 2000, starring Mel Gibson, back when he was hiding his craziness. He then came back in 2004 with Independence Day 2... err... I mean The Day After Tomorrow, which was another soulless cash grab. Audiences wised up next time around with release of 10 000 BC, which was both a critical and commercial flop, deservingly so. He then regained some of his box office mojo with 2012, another disaster snoozefest. And just last year he released his biggest pile of "meh" ever: White House Down, starring no one cares.
So, Donny, what is your favourite and least favourite movie of these two guys?
Well the best movie from Emmerich's library, and I think we agree on this one, is Independence Day. The movie has it's flaws but overall it's a really fun ride and Will Smith was just hitting his stride and this was step one to becoming the major box office draw he is... Err... Was... M. Night has since had his way with him. As far as his worst movie, I'd probably say 10,000 B.C. had I of actually seen that heaping pile of cow dung, or so I hear. Since I can only pick from what I've seen I'm going with Universal Soldier, unlike Independence Day it was an action movie that tried to take itself seriously and failed miserably at it. Had they of embraced it's inherent cheese it might not be such a shit storm.
Looking at Bay's filmography, the one that jumps out as the best is yet another Will Smith film with Bad Boys II. I know it wasn't a critical darling, in fact most critics disliked it but as a film fan. It's nice to just watch an action packed buddy cop movie with just the right amount of humour in the perfect places, I call this shades of Beverly Hills Cop... Relax I said "shades". As for the worst... No surprise here as I despise Armegeddon with all my being... Despite being lukewarm on Affleck and Willis at the time this movie bored the crap out of me and if I have to hear that god awful Aerosmith song one more time I'm going to blow my brains out... Plus why did we have to hear Affleck and Tyler serenading each other with Leaving On A Jet Plane? If I had to do that I'd kick my own ass.
Well, I know I'm going to lose some credibility for saying this, but I like Armageddon and it's my favourite Bay film. Yeah. the plot of oil drillers saving our asses is stupid, and the science is all horribly wrong, but the cast is great (aside from Ben Affleck), it's well acted (aside from Ben Affleck), the meteor shower scene in New York is awesome, and it has some truly heartfelt moments. And lets face it, who doesn't enjoy watching Ben Affleck get shot in the leg? As for his biggest piece of shit, I'll have to go with Pearl Harbor, he may have made some movies that I guess would we worse, but Pearl Harbor takes the cake as he spat in the face of history and was an insult to everyone who died on that fateful December morning, and Ben Affleck didn't help much either (this was before he was a director so I can insult him all I want).
On the Roland Emmerich side of things, my favourite of his is Independence Day. It has plenty of flaws, and it's basically a modern day War of the Worlds ripoff, but it just has that awesome factor that you can't ignore, plus Will Smith is cool. As for worst, it's the movie he made right after that, Godzilla. the effects were lame even for '98, it was horribly acted, horribly written, and just horrible... Seriously, the movie tries to make Godzilla out as the bad guy, yet the army destroys more of New York than the monster ever possibly could. Not to mention that Emmerich spat in the face of what Godzilla is all about... He's an indestructible force of nature, not some T-Rex lookalike who gets killed by missiles... Fuck that movie! Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it!
There you go sucking Godzilla's dick again...
Godzilla doesn'r have a dick! That's another thing, why the fuck did they make him an asexual being who can lay eggs? Oh, right, so Emmerich can then rip off the Velociraptors by making mini-zillas!
Alright I get it! Godzilla '98 = Jurassic Park. Can we move on now?
And don't even get me started on the cast. You get Ferris Bueller, Matt from Melrose Place, half of the cast of the Simpsons, and you expect us to take this movie seriously? Fucking terrible cast!
Ok, you can stop now...
NO! HE TURNED THE GREATEST MOVIE MONSTER OF ALL TIME INTO A LITTLE BITCH!!! WHAT THE FUCK???!!! FUCK YOU!!!
Alright, well, while Mike is running around the neighbourhood ripping his own pubes out. I'm just gonna make my decision on who is the shittiest director between these two... I've gone back and forth on this but in the end, perhaps a little bit unfairly, I have to call Michael Bay the worst. If I have to pick a worst movie out of the 2, it would be Armageddon, and Pearl Harbour would be a close enough second. So on that alone I have to call Bay the worst, but truth be told I've seen more Bay movies then Emmerich's and as I previously noted, I'm sure 10,000 BC is awful beyond belief which is why I can't bring myself to watch it. I think the Transformers movies gave Bay a bad rap for making this possibly amazing trilogy into an effect driven, no story, easy target for hate film franchise. But hey, lots of people must love it to rake in the money it does, I know the first three instalments got my money at the box office, although I really hated myself after watching the third. So if for no other reason than the Ben Affleck double punch I'm crowning Michael Bay worst director. You okay muffin?
Well, I won't need to manscaping anytime soon... where were we? Ok, well, I'm gonna agree with Donny on this one. I do think Emmerich made the biggest hunk of trash out of the 2 with Zilla, but after that, Pearl Harbor comes in right behind it, followed by the Transformers movies, followed by the Island, followed by Bad Boys 2 which I didn't like. Although I did like Armageddon in spite of it's flaws, I do think that Independence Day is the best of the bunch and to me is one of the greatest pure popcorn movies ever made. So yeah, Michael Bay, you suck... but at least you're not M Night Shyamalan... or Uwe Boll for that matter!
So we have both concluded that, although both of these directors have shitty resumes overall, Roland Emmerich's pile of turd at least has some sprinkles on it.
What do you think, do you agree? Disagree? Does Mike need anger management? Tell us below in the comments.
And that concludes our first edition of "Who's Worse?" stay tuned for our next one at some point, whatever that may be. If you want to see more from us, please check us out in the links below.
Donny's Personal Blog
Mike's Personal Blog
Donny's Blog over at Big B Comics
We are working hard to constantly make posts and we recently have reviews of Mean Girls, Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Godzilla (2014), Commando, The Amazing Spider Man 2, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Lego Movie.
Flying Monkeys Jacking Out!
