Movies

Michael Bay's Best Movie Lacks One Thing That Made Him Famous

Michael Bay's Best Movie Lacks One Thing That Made Him Famous
Image credit: Legion-Media

For some reason it is rarely mentioned, completely overshadowed by the director's other blockbusters.

Michael Bay has made a name for himself as a director of loud and flashy blockbusters, with some of his best-known works being Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001) and the Transformers franchise, of which he directed the first five films.

His other notable works include the Bad Boys films and Pain & Gain (2013), but there's one other movie that doesn't get as much mention as it should, despite being absolutely great.

The Island is a sci-fi action thriller released in 2005 and it has an impressive cast including Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi and other names you may be familiar with.

It follows Lincoln Six Echo (McGregor) and Jordan Two Delta (Johansson), who live in an isolated complex created to protect its inhabitants from the outside world, which has become so polluted that it is now uninhabitable.

There is, however, one last clean place on Earth, The Island, to which a resident lucky enough to win the weekly lottery is sent.

Living in this society and following its strict rules (created to keep the residents healthy), Lincoln begins to suspect that something is not quite right, which leads him to uncover the secrets of the complex.

While it may not have Bay's signature explosions every minute (sorry, Transformers fans), The Island is a great movie with a nice story that has a few twists, well-acted characters, and many fans consider it one of the best in the director's career.

It is slower and more emotional than most of his other work (although it does start to look like a Michael Bay movie by the end) with some absolutely great sequences.

But, as mentioned in the beginning, it somehow ended up being underrated, with people rarely giving the director enough credit for it.