Love him or hate him (or love to hate him) Michael Bay is a this knob goes to 11 kind of director. He has never subscribed to the philosophy of always leave them wanting more and judging by his box office record at least it's hard to argue with the results. But in the case of Bay s latest Transformers Age of Extinction if the largely scathing reviews are any indication many who see the movie this weekend may be left wanting a little less.
With each successive installment in the Transformers franchise the running time has grown longer. The first Transformers film came in at a relatively svelte 2 hours 24 minutes the second ran 2 hours 30 minutes the third was 2 hours 37 minutes. And the fourth It tips the scales at a whopping 2 hours 45 minutes. That s 165 minutes of cars turning into giant robots and making smashy smashy.
lRelated Movies Sequel or reboot Paramount plays it both ways with new 'Transformers'See all relatedIt s not uncommon for some bloat to creep into ongoing franchises as directors feel both emboldened by their success and pressured to top themselves. The first film in Peter Jackson s Lord of the Rings trilogy ran 2 hours 58 minutes but by the third trek through Middle earth that run time was up to 3 hours 21 minutes. Christopher Nolan s Batman trilogy went from 2 hours 21 minutes for Batman Begins to 2 hours 45 minutes for The Dark Knight Returns.
But while many critics and moviegoers felt those films earned their lengths with a certain thematic heft it s fair to ask whether any movie based on a line of toys really needs to be nearly three hours long. To put things in perspective the original cut of Apocalypse Now was just 2 hours 33 minutes long and there Francis Ford Coppola was taking on the Vietnam War not the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. But in today's Hollywood it's the Jacksons Nolans and Bays who are swinging for the fences with the kind of long cinematic epics that used to be the province of filmmakers like Coppola David Lean and Akira Kurosawa.
One might wonder why you'd even want to make such a long movie in the first place if your primary target audience is attention span challenged 10 to 15 year old boys. But the fact is there are more than aesthetic considerations at play here. By releasing the fourth Transformers film at 165 minutes Paramount Pictures is potentially cutting into its own grosses. It's simple math the longer the movie the fewer the times it can be shown in any given theater.
Make no mistake Transformers Age of Extinction will earn vast amounts of money in its opening weekend and Bay will likely brush off the negative reviews as he always does. They castrate me he once said of critics. They think I m the devil. (For the record Times critic Betsy Sharkey found plenty to like about the movie.) But if the film comes in at significantly below the $100 million benchmark many have set for its opening some observers will inevitably be asking on Monday whether Bay should have reined things in just a bit. After all the Transformers are already more than meets the eye. Isn t that enough
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