Michael Bay does a mashup of Heat, Speed, and etc. in his traditional style. Relentless, nihilistic, hyperkinetic, and enthusiastically dumb.

It's business as usual for Bay, but this type of movie is so rare these days that I was overjoyed to see it in theatre. Real cars, real stunts, and real explosions in a real city. An outrageous and idiotic plot that's nonetheless based on recognizable human stakes. And performances that have some plain old showmanship to them.

If anything is new for Bay here, it's that he seems to understand humour slightly more than usual. It's actually a pretty light and plucky movie for the most part, with some genuinely funny jokes. On the other hand, the movie's 2h16m runtime is absurdly excessive and most people are likely to find themselves flagging during the second half.

It's a $40 million movie and it looks better and offers more genuine visual creativity than many of today's biggest movies.

It's incredibly dumb and I loved it.

Avoid the trailer.

I'll be checking this one out soon. Looking forward to it. ;D

I was planning to see it tomorrow.  8)