It’s not a Michael Bay film without explosions and highly intense action scenes. Bad Boys, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon… the list goes on when it comes to Bay’s explosive box office epics. They’re such an integral part of Bay’s work most moviegoers refer to it as “Bayhem.” Of course, his upcoming release Ambulance falls right in line with his trademark cinematic spectacles. While there will be wild explosions in the upcoming thriller, the director admitted he’s unhappy with one aspect of the Bayhem.
When it comes to action films, the Bayhem is all about making things as real as possible. The filmmaker has been an advocate for practical effects. So he only pulls out the CGI card when necessary. But sometimes it doesn’t yield the best results. The Pearl Harbor director spilled to Les Cinémas Pathé Gaumont why he was less than pleased about using computer graphics this time around.
All those explosions and cars flipping, that’s all real. That’s all live, real, ratchets. It looks very dangerous [and] it could be very dangerous if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. Most of it is real stunts. There’s very few blue screen shots on the movie. There’s not a lot of CGI. Some of the CGI is shit in this movie. There’s a couple shots that I wasn’t happy with, okay? Alright.
Even the Bad Boys director had his gripes about Bayhem. Of course, less-than-stellar CGI is nothing new in cinema. But for a filmmaker like Bay who thrives for all the action to look realistic, having bad 3D graphics doesn’t follow the model. Just his final words alone signaled a bit of irritation in not having the perfect results for the thriller. Given how grand his explosions are, it’s only right that the action stalwart is in his feelings about those scenes.
Of course, 3D artists and designers do their best with the time they have to complete the work. Because of the time crunch and limited funds, CGI scenes can throw a film’s storyline off. The battle scene between T’Challa and Killmonger in Black Panther has been the go-to scene for pointing out bad CGI in recent years. As much as special effects are in demand, not everyone needs them all the time as in the case of Tenet’s otherworldly scenes. In some cases, films like Greyhound relied on special effects over practical ones to recreate elements to keep costs down. That hasn’t stopped some Hollywood studios from throwing shade at the increasingly commonplace technology.
The intense action-thriller follows in the Bay traditions as viewers will get to see Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as adoptive brothers who wind up on a high-speed hostage chase after a bank robbery goes wrong. Eiza Gonzalez, Garret Dillahunt, and Moses Ingram support the two actors.
Eagle-eyed fans will have to play spot the subpar CGI when Ambulance hit theaters on Apr. 8. The action film is one of the upcoming movies fans can grab popcorn and enjoy the epic ride.