Who's Worse? Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich?

      OR








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!

Godzilla (2014)

Today we (Mad Mike and DonnyFTW) will be talking about the most recent reboot of Godzilla from Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros.

Godzilla was awakened in 1954 and the US and Russian militaries tried destroying him, but nothing worked. We are then introduced to the Brody family in 1999, living in Japan with Joe working at a nuclear power plant with his wife Sandra. After what seemed like an earthquake, the power plant gets completely destroyed, killing Sandra. 15 years later, we begin with their son Ford, a soldier returning from over a year of duty. After a short reunion with his family, he is forced to fly to Japan to help with Joe, who was arrested near the now quarantined plant. After being released and trying to convince Ford of some wild conspiracies, they decide to go to the quarantined zone again. After they’re both arrested, they soon discover that there is a creature living there… absorbing radiation like it’s a source of food. This creature awakens and destroys the whole freaking area, including Joe.

So first off Mike what were your thoughts on the movie?

Well... when I first heard that there would be a new Godzilla movie coming out, my reaction was something like this…

And who could blame me? The ’98 turdzilla left a bitter taste in everyone’s mouth, including the real Godzilla himself (who would eventually get revenge on that movie). Since then, many fans including myself have been waiting patiently for an actual good Hollywood adaptation of this monster… and we finally got it!

The movie begins with a few dramatic scenes and a slow pace, and you don’t actually see Godzilla until an hour in at least. It instead decides to take a page from the book of Jaws and focus on the characters. The build up described in the intro is pretty much the build up before you see the first Muto monster. Godzilla shows up about half an hour later when the Muto decides to attack Hawaii, and it’s only for a few seconds… and the fight they have is montaged on a TV screen. To me, this is a strong point of the movie, it does a very good job of building tension and suspense, giving you more and more of the big G every time he shows up, ultimately concluding in one of the greatest monster fights in movie history.

That leads me to talk about this movie’s climax… my god! The final 25-30 minutes of film has to be one of the greatest pieces of cinema I’ve ever seen! 

I guess at this point we should warn readers about the spoilers ahead... So if you don't want to be spoiled maybe skip the following paragraph.

The fight between Godzilla and the 2 Mutos is relentless. The final blows to both Mutos are fucking sick! Big G kills off the flying Muto by using his tail as a baseball bat and flinging that motherfucker face first into a building. Then with the Crawling Muto… Fuck… I… Just… I’m fucking speechless because no words I use can describe how fucking badass that was… He spreads that bug’s mouth open with his bare hands and breathes atomic breath down his god damn throat… and then rips his head off! Just… FUCK THAT WAS SO AWESOME! EAT MY BLUE FIRE, BITCH!

Fuck... I need a few minutes to calm down from such awesomeness... You can talk about the movie now Donny.

Jesus Christ you're wordy...

Well not to play devils advocate here but I had some issues with the movie's focus. Director Gareth Edwards seemed to have a hard time deciding what direction he wanted to go with Godzilla. It's treated like a disaster movie, yet we see next to little destruction... I mean we see a lot of shots of the aftermath of destruction but next to no scenes of it happening and the odd time we do it's off the TV screen. Then there are scenes reminent of monster movies of old... Clearly for nostalgia purposes but it still clouds the focus. Add in the human element and we don't get any seamless transitions between the different focal points and it comes across as choppy.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Kick-Ass fame is the core of the movie as Edwards smartly follows Johnson on his journey to get back home to his family while he intertwines with locals, the military, and the monsters. Johnson wears several hats here, from scorned son to loving father and back to hardened military Lieutenant. And he does all these things great, which actually puts a damper on the other acting performances that were good to okay but paled in comparison. Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Seriwaza always has the same “oh shit” look on his face and Bryan Cranston, arguably the actor with the most pedigree, is used as more of a plot device for Johnson than a character himself. It was very wonderful to see Sally Hawkins back on screen (I have yet to watch Blue Jasmine FYI) but she never really does anything which is heartbreaking because she has the ability to humanise any story… Even one featuring a 350 foot lizard.

Ok, I've had time to calm down from all the awesomeness... Uhh... Where are we? Oh the acting? Cool...

Well, I do think Bryan Cranston does an amazing job with the very few scenes he's given. Being a huge Breaking Bad fan unlike certain other people in this review...

I've never watched it... It's on my to do list though!

Well I've grown accustomed to his style of acting, which I would describe as flawless. I thought Johnson did a fine job in the lead role, even if his Ford Brody character is a little too stoic at times. I will let his lack of emotion slide as he is playing a soldier, though... So maybe he was just written that way. Ken Watanabe did okay for me (they just had to have a Japanese guy in this movie, right?), however the scene where he's almost choking up at the end was corny as hell. Solid acting all-around though, especially for a monster movie.

With all the praises I have for the movie, I'll still admit it's flaws. I say most of them lie within the film's tone. I felt at times that the movie didn't know whether it wanted to be character driven survival flick, a monster movie, or a disaster epic. The tonal shifts of the movie are frequent and can get very wearisome. I do think that has more to do with the story and writing than it does with Gareth's direction. I think it would’ve been better if Frank Darabont wrote all of the human elements instead of just collaborating. His calling card is that of a writer who focuses on how human characters deal with a crisis in their lives (See Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Mist, etc.). You can clearly see which parts were written by him, and which parts were not, and that can expose some inconsistencies with the characters. So yeah, the awkward tonal changes are definitely something to be worked on for the sequel (which WILL happen, who are we kidding?)

Another problem lies with the character development. While these characters are solid at face value (and pretty well acted by the way), you don’t really get to know that much about them. We know that Ford is soldier who diffuses bombs, we know that his wife Elle is a nurse, and we know that Dr. Seriwaza’s father died in Hiroshima… but that’s about it. Once again, that’s something to improve on in the sequel (It’s happening, get over it). The lack of development didn’t really bug me that much though, as these characters are well acted, especially for the material they’re given. If Terminator Salvation taught me anything, it's that a good performance can mask a poorly written character (i.e. Christian Bale as John Connor). I hope this cast returns in the next movie (You know it’s coming).

Say, Donny, what did you really love about the movie? If anything?

Apart from my aforementioned love of Johnson's acting chops and the last big fight we see at the end of the film (AKA everyone that will ever watch this movie's favourite part) the part that intrigued me the most was the opening credits... I know weird right? But it pulled me in from the get-go. I'm a big political guy so with the Argo-esque black outs of government reports being used as the credits with the fictionalized nuclear test videos and stills from the 50's of the US and Russia trying to destroy Godzilla as the background I was immediately drawn to the screen. Also Edwards makes great use of the wide-shot throughout the film whether it's a half wrecked golden gate bridge or Godzilla emerging from the depths it was always a treat to see... I know wide shots when we're talking about a huge lizard is a given... But Edwards was very effective in his utilization.

Mike did you leave anything out?

Well, since you were just talking about it, that reminds me to comment on the Edwards's camera work: It was absolutely fantastic! I loved the fact that the final throwdown between Godzilla and Mutos was free of any of that shaky-cam bullshit that Hollywood seems to be obsessed with these days. My favourite shot of all is when you see the build up of the Big G's atomic breath! I personally was waiting to see it happen during that whole fight, and it's as if Edwards knew exactly when and how to deliver the audience that iconic trait! Loved it!

What else did I love? Well, Godzilla is actually Godzilla here! I know I made a post on my own blog about how making changes to the source material can be okay, but only as long as the changes make sense. In '98, the changes didn't make sense, simple as that. There are some changes to the original design here (he's fucking huge, for example), but they fit well. His roar in this movie is fantastic, in fact I would compare it to the T-Rex roar in Jurassic Park, it's that good! Not to mention that it awe-inspiring to hear it in the theater... I think this movie will get Oscar consideration for sound. It was very well done!

But yeah, in terms of what Godzilla is all about, Edwards totally nailed it! My big hope is that Toho was impressed with it enough that they give Edwards the rights to the other monsters like King Ghidorah, Rodan, Mothra, and MechaGodzilla for the very likely sequels that will happen.

Oh, one more thing... As a Packers fan, it was so nice to see San Francisco get completely ravaged in this movie! Take that, Niners!

In conclusion, Godzilla does have some big problems. But honestly, with all of the awesomeness that’s packed into this movie, I can let the issues slide here. Godzilla is a terrific movie, it’s filled with suspense, has some great action, the visuals are breathtaking, and the climactic battle might go down as one of the greatest movie battles of all time! To put it in NSFW terms… the movie slowly masturbates for an hour and a half, building massive tension within its nads, and then it spends almost thirty minutes blowing its load all over the audience’s fucking face! Fuck yeah!

I give this movie a full 9 atomic breaths out of 10, it's not perfect, but it's still awesome!

You have the floor now, Donny, give us your final statement...

Godzilla satisfies on all levels… But that’s about it. Everything is good or okay. Nothing stands out as great except the last 15 minutes or so, and even those have some minor problems and don’t negate the previous 100 minutes or so. Godzilla seemed unsure of what angle he wanted to take, they needed to pick a tone and nail it down early and often rather than flip-flopping between a monster movie, a human anchored drama, a disaster movie and countless others. Even if the transitions were a little more seamless it wouldn’t have been as big of a problem. Hopefully they correct this in possible future sequels. All in all though I feel Godzilla succeeded on what it was trying to do, make the monster relevant again, and for that it gets a thumbs up.

I only use a 5 scale rating system and I'm opposed to half stars and this wasn't quite a 4 to me so I have to give it only 3 stars.

Well there you have it. The very first installment of Flying Monkey Reviews. Thank you for coming on this journey with us and if you want to check out more from us check the links below.

 Mike's Personal Blog

Donny's Personal Blog

Donny's Posts Over At Big B Comics

We're working hard to constantly add posts to these and if you're looking for more movie reviews these are where to find them as we recently got review of Commando, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Captain America: The Winter Solider, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The LEGO Movie.

Happy Watching! Flying Monkey's jacking out.