According to the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the top-rated movie of Michael Bay‘s famously over-the-top career is The Rock, which holds a “Certified Fresh” 76% score. Starring Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery — imagine what that set must have been like — the film remains a seminal example of 1990s excess. In many ways, Bay was the architect of this style, which he carried forward into the 2000s and continues to refine to this day. In fact, his latest feature, Ambulance, is his second-highest-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes with a 68% score. Ambulance featured some of the most ambitious action ever orchestrated by Bay. But there seems to be a fine line separating pleasurable maximalism and garish excess, and Bay’s movies often fall on the wrong side.
His worst-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes, however, is currently witnessing a sudden viewership spike. The movie was released theatrically in 2017, at a time when Bay had, by his own admission, bitten off more than he could chew. The movie in question not only received poor reviews, but it also ended up bringing a formerly successful franchise to a screeching halt after a decade. We’re talking, of course, about Transformers: The Last Knight. The film emerged as the lowest-grossing installment of Bay’s five-film series, grossing just over $600 million worldwide against a reported budget of $260 million. The series began in 2007, with the generally well-liked Transformers, which grossed more than $700 million worldwide against a reported budget of $200 million.
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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Survival Quiz Which Sci-Fi World Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars
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Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you’d actually make it out of alive.
💊The Matrix
🔥Mad Max
🌧️Blade Runner
🏜️Dune
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🚀Star Wars
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01
You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one.
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02
In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires.
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03
What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you’re honest about what you’re actually afraid of.
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04
How do you deal with authority you don’t trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything.
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05
Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn’t just tactical — it’s physical, psychological, and very much about where you are.
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06
Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are.
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07
Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they’re actually made of.
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08
What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another.
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Your Fate Has Been Calculated You’d Survive In…
Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.
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The Resistance, Zion
The Matrix
You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.
You’re drawn to understanding how the system works before figuring out how to break it.
You’d find the Resistance, or it would find you — your instinct for spotting constructed realities is the machines’ worst nightmare.
You function best when you have access to information and the freedom to act on it.
The Matrix built an airtight prison. You’d be the one probing the walls for the door.
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The Wasteland
Mad Max
The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.
You don’t need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon.
You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it — and you’re good at all three.
You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider.
In the wasteland, that distinction is everything.
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Los Angeles, 2049
Blade Runner
You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.
You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer.
In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional.
You’re not a hero. But you’re not lost, either.
In Blade Runner’s world, that distinction is everything.
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Arrakis
Dune
Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.
Patience, discipline, and political awareness are your core strengths — and on Arrakis, they’re survival tools.
You understand that the long game matters more than any single victory.
Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You’d learn its logic and earn its respect.
In time, you wouldn’t just survive Arrakis — you’d begin to reshape it.
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A Galaxy Far, Far Away
Star Wars
The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.
You find meaning in being part of something larger than yourself — a cause, a crew, a rebellion.
You’d gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire’s grip can be broken.
You fight — not because you have to, but because standing aside isn’t something you’re capable of.
In Star Wars, that willingness is what makes all the difference.
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‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ Sparked a Downward Spiral for the Franchise
Two of Bay’s five Transformers movies cracked the coveted $1 billion mark worldwide. In fact, the fourth installment — Transformers: Age of Extinction — grossed $1.1 billion globally. But by the time the fifth movie was released, fans seemed to have moved on. Transformers: The Last Knight, which brought back Mark Wahlberg and Josh Duhamel from previous installments, now holds a career-worst 16% Rotten Tomatoes score for Bay. This is lower than the 19% score of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and the 23% score of Bad Boys II. That said, Transformers: The Last Knight is currently among the most-watched movies on the domestic MGM+ chart. The franchise continued with the prequel films Bumblebee, directed by Travis Knight, and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, directed by Steven Caple Jr. Neither of them met the benchmark set by Bay’s five films. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
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Release Date
June 21, 2017
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Runtime
149 minutes
Writers
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Ken Nolan, Art Marcum, Matt Halloway, Akiva Goldsman
Producers
Don Murphy, Ian Bryce, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Tom DeSanto
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