Meet Charlie Wax. He’s a loud, boorish American whose bald-head, quirky shades and ‘screw you’ attitude suggest Bruce Willis’ midlife crisis. Charlie is also a spy, living in France while working to stop an intricate and dangerous web of Chinese drug dealers and Pakistani terrorists. Spy protocol would suggest dealing with such a complex and seemingly unrelated web of villains evasively and covertly. Not Charlie, who snorts coke, tear-asses through Paris shooting people and gleefully fires a rocket launcher from a bridge during rush hour.

Wax is an action movie creature of habit, all macho swagger and raving lunacy while somehow still playing for the home team, and he is on full display in Pierre Morel’s From Paris With Love. In better days we would get Willis as Charlie, but now must settle for John Travolta in the role. To his credit, he certainly gives it his all. Deliriously unhinged and trying to chew up the rest of the scenery he missed in last year’s Pelham, Travolta behaves as if he’s in a different picture than everyone else.

Unfortunately for everyone else, including Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Wax’s straight laced foil, the movie they are in is a frustratingly erratic affair that can’t decide whether it’s a colorful cartoon of explosions and chase scenes or some sort of serious espionage thriller. News flash to director Pierre Morel, who gave us last year’s Taken (aka Liam Neeson eats Paris); when your material focuses on a bald American biker taking on offensively one-dimensional evil nationalities while being as rude as humanly possible, ‘serious’ is not something you should even consider.

All of this has been envisioned as a kind of buddy movie, and it wants desperately to work. On some level, there’s a fun, go-for-broke, b-flick hidden amongst the over-heated pseudo-drama, but not enough of this irritating onion’s skin gets peeled to make it palatable. The obvious problem out of the starting gate is the same one that really prevented me from just going along for this arson-filled ride; it is painfully obvious that Meyers and Travolta have no chemistry together at all.

Meyer’s James Reece is a government agent with a wonderful girlfriend and a few quickly sketched character quirks who almost immediately finds himself with a target on his head when he meets the reckless Wax. After that, Morel and scripter Luc Besson throw the two through an escalating series of emotional plot hoops that eventually decimate any goodwill that Travolta has earned. Schizophrenic is an understatement and I like to imagine that Besson’s plotting technique involves throwing darts at an open page of the Flammable Materials handbook.

The action scenes have a certain goofy sensibility but they have none of the kinetic energy or playful spirit that Besson’s best films possessed. I’m a huge fan of The Big Blue, Leon: The Professional, The Fifth Element and Morel’s earlier District B-13, but each of those films had the courage of their nutty convictions. They were big stupid events that circumvented dimness by injecting serious doses of wit and irony into their characters. Even less-than-successful later pics like Kiss of the Dragon had the benefit of a strong rapport between the leads. Sadly, Paris has neither and it suffers for that.

But, stodgy critic guy, doesn’t Paris work as a turn-your-brain-off Friday night action flick? Isn’t that all it wants to be? Perhaps, and while I suppose there will be a small audience who buy what it’s trying to sell, it’s safe to say that Love isn’t the kind of thrill ride anyone will remember tomorrow. I had trouble staying connected while it was playing.

It’s rather fortuitous that District 13:Ultimatum, the sequel to Morel’s own 2006 actioner, also opens today because it provides a perfect counterpoint to my argument. That film is no less violent, unhinged or dopey than Paris, but it works because of a single-minded devotion to its mad, mad premise, because it generates a real energy in its action scenes and delivers believable camaraderie between its leads. Paris fails not because of what it is, but because of how poorly it goes about being what it is. The result is a tedious popcorn flick that’s more glaring than Travolta’s hairless noggin.

With Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opening this week, it seems time to take a look back at the critical punching bag career of Michael Bay. Outside of The Rock, Bad Boys and Transformers people have destroyed and tarnished his films. While Pearl Harbor is undoubtedly one of the worst things to happen to humanity, Bay takes too much blame for films that are otherwise purely and greatly entertaining. The guy knows what he’s making and outside of that film we shall not mention, he never parades them as “the most important film in the history of cinema making.” His flicks cater to the twelve year-old inside us all that wants to kill the villain in the worst possible way or go up and save the world on an asteroid (and really, when you’re twelve, do you care about the science of it all or blowing up the asteroid and being a hero?)

In all of his pictures, there’s something known as Bayhem. What is Bayhem you ask? Well I’ll tell ya. It’s the biggest whirlwind you’ll see on screen mixed with an explosion or bullets whizzing by you or both followed by some glorious slow-motion of the hero and or said action sequence. In short it’s mayhem that only Michael Bay can deliver, and what better way to celebrate the opening of Transformers 2 than with The Top 11 Bayhems.

11. THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR – PEARL HARBOR

My hatred of this film is pretty well-known, but I’m trying to include all of Bay’s film and this does qualify as Bayhem even if it does slap anyone involved in the attack in the face. Slow-motion shots of incoming Japanese planes? Check. Explosions up the wazoo? Check. Planes being shot down left and right and right and left? Check. Likely, it’s the least terrible scene in the movie but I can’t bring myself to call anything about this film good. The fact anything from this crap is on here is a compliment.

10. NAVY SEAL SHOOTOUT – THE ROCK

WHEW, now with that one out of me, we can move on to this brilliant scene from Bay’s second film The Rock. Now, if this had been “The Top 11 Best Directed Bay Scenes” this would be at the top as it perfectly captures the vulnerability and claustrophobia of being in such a tight location for a shootout. As it stands for Bayhem, it’s still great and ends very violently with the SEALs being wasted by Hummel’s mercenaries from above. It’s fairly gripping to see these men fall to their doom and you really wish they wouldn’t. The fallout of the scene leads to one of the best exchanges between Goodspeed and Mason as well as making the viewer feel, if for a minute, all hope is lost.

9. HANGAR ATTACK – BAD BOYS

Interesting fact: Bay took a pay cut on this movie so he could have the hangar explode at the end of this film. It’s debatable whether the scene needed it or not but who doesn’t get riled up watching Mike Lowry and Marcus Burnett launch a small assault on Fouchet and his crew. “You forgot your boardin’ pass,” followed by a flaming body being shot out of a plane is badass, as is Trigger Mike’s leap after Fouchet as the villain tries to flee. It’s all gloriously capped off by a car chase and a really fun take down of the villain. As usual, we get the slow motion shots of our heroes against the sunset as well as Bay’s trademark helicopters. The best thing to me is Mark Mancina’s score as Mike plants one into Fouchet’s leg. Perfect hero music.

8. FREEWAY/BUILDING CHASE - THE ISLAND

A pretty underrated film in it’s own right, The Island did have a strong performance from Djimon Hounsou and was ultimately hurt by terrible marketing which gave away the twist and all of the film’s secrets (see Moon for how to market a film like this properly.) Part of what hurt as well was Bay trying to make this a summer blockbuster with a sci-fi story, as evidenced by the ending (which should have ended the moment a certain character died.) While to me, the freeway chase is a giant rip off of another flick on this list, the sequence that takes place in the building is enough to justify it being here. It culminates with a pretty unrealistic Looney Toones-esque drop that only feels right in a Bay film. Not to mention all the destruction the giant R causes as it races down the side of the structure. Ah, more lovely Bayhem.

7. SOCCENT BASE ATTACK – TRANSFORMERS

This was the perfect way to open Transformers as it begins with that wonderful noise that defined so many of our childhoods. What follows is a giant smackdown of the SOCCENT base in Qatar as Blackout pummels through tank after tank and soldier after soldier. It’s memorable to me because the moment that familiar noise was made, my theater rose and burst into applause and cheers. If Bay was trying to get everyone on his side, he did it within the first five minutes by giving that noise and one of those giant robots whipping all kinds of tail. This, coupled with the introduction of Sam, set us up for what kind of movie we were in for and it didn’t disappoint. Plus, who didn’t want a Blackout toy after that?

6. SAN FRANCISCO CAR CHASE – THE ROCK

The funny thing is Bay wrote this chase into the movie as it wasn’t apart of the original script. While that’s fairly obvious now, Bay still gave us a chase that aspired to be Bullitt on steroids. John Mason launches Womack over the hotel ledge, gets chased by Stanley Goodspeed and the Bayhem ensues once Mason takes a Humvee and Goodspeed “borrows” a Ferrari that’s not his. For my money, it’s one of the best car chases of the last fifteen years with glass being crashed, water tanks being destroyed and even a trolley and the Ferrari are claimed in a giant explosion to cap it all off. Connery’s exchange with the Humvee owner is short and priceless and Cage’s “hero shot” reaction is what the lot of us would feel after being in that. Probably the most badass part of the whole thing is when the Ferrari crashes though the glass from the parking lot. Yeah, I want to do that.

5. ROCKHOUND GOES CRAZY AND DESTRUCTION OF PARIS – ARMAGEDDON

Technically, this counts as one scene as these two follow each other. It all starts when Steve Buscemi gets hold of a gun on an asteroid (and if you’re still taking the flick seriously at this point, shame on you) and starts shooting and blasting everything on the asteroid. The asteroid gets pissed and causes an earthquake that claims an armadillo and one of the astronauts. What follows is one of the most over-dramatic scenes ever put to film with everyone running away and the man standing on the yellow taxi with a “The End is Here” sign. More Bayhem continues when an asteroid falls near Paris and in one fowl swoop the capital of France is leveled. Still, the highlight here is the montage of the world running in fear that has some sort of “we’re sure screwed now” type of mentality behind it. It’s likely the music, which is scored brilliantly by Trevor Rabin.

4. ASSAULT ON TAPIA’S MANSION – BAD BOYS II

Simon Pegg once stated “the film runs on for twenty minutes too long, but it’s the best twenty minutes in the film.” That’s not necessarily true, but the take down of Johnny Tapia is a wonderful action sequence that goes from Plan A, to Plan B, to even Plan C. Not content with the heroes fighting just drug dealers, Bay feels they have to fight the entire Cuban army as well. Bullets fly and magically hit only one of our heroes as they rescue Marcus’ sister and proceed to speed off in a Hummer as Tapia’s house comes tumbling to the ground and only to be finished off the only way Bayhem can be: explosions. The end of all this shooting and explosions does take heavily from Police Story 2 but Plan C ends with one of the best deaths of a villain. Even a lizard is claimed in all of this mess.

3. MISSION CITY BATTLE – TRANSFORMERS

“At the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall.” Cue applause from anyone who’s a true Transformers fan and you’re witnessing the best thirty minutes in the movie. This scene displays all of the money that was put into making this flick and nary one time does it look fake. An entire city is destroyed as the robots pound on each other through seemingly downtown Los Angeles. Everyone gets their time to shine, even Optimus Prime who gets pounded on by Megatron and makes an exciting rescue of Sam. In addition, Ironhide’s Chow Yun-Fat like dive as he takes down Brawl (not Devastator, as the movie incorrectly states) is pure greatness. Starscream awesomely takes down a group of Raptor jets before tricking them into thinking he’s one of them and the scene makes Josh Duhamel cool by doing his motorcycle stint to take down Blackout. Enough Bayhem? I thought so.

2. FREEWAY CHASE – BAD BOYS II

It sucks this scene is so early in the movie as it’s my favorite scene and of the best crafted action pieces in a long while. The exchanges between Smith and Lawrence are hysterical and some of it feels natural. The real show stealer though is when the cars start being thrown at the pair by the Haitian drug dealers. Cars aimlessly destroy one another and no, Trigger Mike’s Ferrari doesn’t make it unscathed. Automobiles explode and then get launched from the top of the car carrier. They claim forty-two cars are taken out, but over the course of the scene it looks more like 100. Cars aren’t enough for Explodo (Bay), as he decides to end this with a boat taking out at least ten cars before another five police cars crash and explode into it. The sequence is one of the best car chases you’ll find and is filmed with perfect execution. My favorite exchange? “Know what would be real fuckin’ helpful Marcus? Just shut the fuck up and let me drive, let’s try that!”

1. THE ENDING OF ARMAGEDDON

Odd choice? Not in the slightest, as this scene is everything that IS Michael Bay. “We win Gracie,” kicks off one lighting quick edit of Harry Stamper’s life and daughter, moving onto slow motion destruction of the asteroid. Through all of this, Trevor Rabin’s score hits all of the easy dramatic notes that give the feeling of “WE DID IT!” Even more, there’s shots of people across the world celebrating and running into the streets with space shuttle toys.  It’s over-the-top, slow motion explosions complete with cheese for the resolution with it’s characters, and rapid fast dialog. But this is what defines Michael Bay as all of his tricks are at work in this entire sequence. Nothing is subtle or restrained here and yet it feels like the perfect way to cap off this flick. It’s pretty likely that those who hate this sequence are the ones who detest Bay and those who enjoy the ending for what it is are those who like him. In either case, no other scene of Bayhem depicts what he is or truly defines the man like this and that’s why it’s at the top.