Hate a Michael Bay action scene? Holy crap, dude, here's some hating straight from the biggest Bay loather in the land. You mention the awful BAD BOYS scene, the movie that thrust upon the world the awfulness that is Michael Bay way back in 1995. We could also discuss the sequel in which cars get slung off a rig and towards Will Smith and Martin Lawrence on a busy intersection and nothing close to happening to them occurs (Bay: They're THAT good, dude!) in last year's BAD BOYS 2. But the most annoying comes from THE ROCK, a movie, that yes, as I've mentioned many times, I enjoyed but not because of Bay but because of Cage and Connery.

Not only do you not know where Sean Connery is in relation to Nicolas Cage in a scene in which Connery has stolen a Humvee and sped off, and Cage takes a Ferrari to go after him in the streets of San Francisco, but you can't train your eyes on one guy even while they're doing something as simple as speeding. As Connery speeds, the camera trains on him for a split second, then darts to the left, and then up, and shakes the whole time. Same thing for Cage as he's in some nondescript area chasing after Connery, at least we can assume he's chasing after him--for all we really know he could be a bad guy stealing Ferraris or auditioning for GONE IN 60 SECONDS. It's NYPD Blue meets MTV at Nervous Times Coffee House. We can't have a mere high-speed chase going through the unique streets of San Fran, no one will be able to keep from dozing off! And not only do we have a high-speed chase where unthinkable damage is done all around, we have to constantly remind you that this stuff is dangerous with our crazy camerawork! It's dumb action film, dumbed down.

A true sense of urgency could have been established, just once, by having an aerial shot of the two cars barrelling through the street, with a series of obstacles that would signal to us where one is in relation to another. Instead of focusing on Connery, then moving the camera all around, and making sure we get the joke where the guy who owns the Humvee has called his car phone and in classic Connery-speak responds, "I'm only borrowing your Humvee," we could have had a longer shot where we see Connery and the Humvee in the foreground, and Cage's Ferrari in the background. You never once, I defy you to find it, where we know how close Cage is to Connery. In fact, you never get the sense he was ever close. And it took me straight out of the scene until the stoner dude says, "Dude, you just fucked up your Ferrari!"