Bad Boys - Opening scene analysis

The film watching year got off to an interesting start recently.  In the last few months since I posted on here I have watched several 'good' films, but I am drawn towards a bit of film analysis after watching Bad Boys.  All films are worth watching, even this 1995 action comedy that Michael Bay used to introduced the world to his unique paparazzi style of film making.  Everything is dialled up as high as possible, everything is as crass as possible.  Everything is Bay:

The opening precredits scene of Bad Boys provides a wealth of detail about Bay's style and tells us much about the film to come.  We open with heavily-filtered shots of a steaming hot afternoon on the Miami coast, the camera flies over the clouds and sea before switching between close up and telephoto shots of a speeding sports car.  Electronic music pounds and begins to rise.

Quickly we are inside the car listening to the Tarantino-like dialogue of two characters talking shit.  Except these guys aren't chatting about what the French call a Big Mac, they're telling us two things 1) they sleep with beautiful woman, 2) this is a very expensive car (exact price tag provided).  They pull over.  A pretty woman with no lines is introduced with an upskirt shot and used as a distraction.  Pounding music continues to rise in volume.  Our two wise-cracking leads overcome being car-jacked by cracking wisely.  Cut to credits.

As far as film openings go, absolutely everything you need to know about Bad Boys is clear from this scene.  This will be a film about two wise cracking bad-asses who will beat the bad guys by cracking wiser and smarter than anyone around them.  They value money, sex, beautiful women and chatting shit.  Female characters will be defined by their clothes and attractiveness to men.  The audience will be distracted from any flaws in the movie by 1) girls 2) sass 3) cars and 4) all of the above.

Every Frame a Painting produced an excellent dissection of Bay's style several years ago, and everything he talks about is present in Bad Boys.  Bays style is reflective of a style that's immediate, over-produced and stylish at the expense of any substance.  His work has influenced and come to be influenced by commodification of our times, of people defining themselves by their relationships with money & wealth, and of the desire to get the most 'likes' - where in the crowded online space only the most extreme gets any airtime.  If ever there was a film-maker who's work defines our era - for good or ill one can make a strong case for Michael Bay.

Better films to be reviewed later I promise!