Like it or not -- and I find myself switching sides depending on the film -- Michael Bay’s distinct directorial swagger remains the hyper-active, hyper-masculine and altogether inevitable manifestation of American culture’s collective id. At best, the man makes giddily exaggerated entertainments; at worst, he delivers ordeals. In celebration of his latest release, “Pain & Gain,” the programming team at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse offered up a four-movie marathon of Bay’s blockbusters for last Sunday’s “Baymageddon” event. The monetary cost of attending was relatively negligible, but what greater toll would my brain cells pay in the end?

2:00 PM: Alamo programmer/event mastermind Greg MacLennan took to the stage with reliable enthusiasm as he pumped up the crowd for an all-but-revealed lineup, to be played in the order suggested by Bay himself and for the most part gracing the screen in honest-to-goodness 35mm. MacLennan did this while standing before a close-enough replica rocket that tipped the identity of the day’s first film, and if that didn’t do the trick, then the V-X gas swallowing contest to follow (involving bowls of green Jell-O, naturally) should have sealed it.

“Let’s hope this elevates their thinking.” -General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris), “The Rock”

2:15: First, trailers for “Escape from Alcatraz” and “Highlander 2: The Quickening,” then “The Rock.” Bay’s second collaboration with Jerry Bruckheimer certified his maximalist appeal alongside fellow ‘90s juggernauts Tony Scott and John Woo, as General Hummel’s biochemical threat against San Francisco finds itself tested by the covert arrival of FBI Agent Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) and former Alcatraz escapee John Mason (Sean Connery). If the camera ever held still, it was almost certainly aimed square at the sweaty face of a shouting authority figure; in Bay’s films, there is hardly ever any wiggle room between chaotic action and stoic reaction.

Also check out: Michael Bay's films ranked from best to worst

Then again, many of Bay’s films to follow would rarely establish stakes, motives and that ticking clock with such efficiency, nor would they benefit from the seasoned presence of a pre-retirement Connery and the antic asides of a pre-shark jump Cage. In fact, the latter’s role results in many of the film’s laughs, which makes the glaring inclusion of a mincing hairstylist and not one, not two, but three loud black extras feel like so much needless pandering. “The Rock” would not mark the last time that Bay had seen fit to include these particularly egregious stereotypes...

“This is some sick s**t!” “Yep, and it’s about to get sicker...” -Detectives Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith), "Bad Boys II"

4:45: Trailers for “Cop and a Half” and Sean Penn’s “Bad Boys,” then “Bad Boys II.” As if the sight of Bay’s own “directed by” credit flanked by a burning cross wasn’t warning enough, this half-fun and beyond bloated sequel not only epitomizes Bay’s penchant for excess, but marks a distinct turning point in his career when simply big, dumb and loud action flicks curdled into more egregious, offensive and cumbersome affairs. Between his transparent efforts to replicate “Titanic” with 2001’s “Pearl Harbor” and the pitifully poor performance of the perfectly big, dumb, loud “The Island” to follow, it’s little wonder that, beneath all their digital mayhem, his “Transformers” films would come to share the same exclusionary characteristics and woefully misguided humor of “BB2.”

For the record, I remain in awe of roughly fifty percent of this film, namely the overwhelmingly practical action sequences and one particular line of dialogue about the imminent realness of some particular s**t, but when that wanton destruction isn’t being marred by the flippant desecration of corpses, it’s surrounded by groan-inducing gags involving collapsing backyard pools, Marcus accidentally ingesting ecstasy, and an exhaustive amount of homophobic misunderstandings in a Miami electronics store. Sure enough, it’s in this last scene when both a shrill black woman and an effeminate gay couple feel the need to chime in with catty commentary. Yet people were still surprised by the time “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” introduced its minstrel-show robot sidekicks...

"I understand that you were handicapped by a natural immaturity, and I forgive you." -Grace Stamper (Liv Tyler), "Armageddon"

7:20: Trailers for “Space Camp,” “The Fifth Element” and the first “Transformers” film, then “Armageddon.” This film just didn’t mark our return to the relative sanctity of ‘90s Bay efforts, it brought with it the most purely basic plot (I know) of his entire career. An asteroid careens towards Earth, and a crew of oil-rig roughnecks led by Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) are charged with flying into space and blowing the thing up. Sure, we’re gifted ancillary antagonists in the form of meddlesome government officials and interpersonal friction between Stamper and hot-headed protégé/potential son-in-law A.J. (Ben Affleck) along the way, but the disaster flick formula shines above all that, barreling towards a planet-killing deadline with enough sheer force to render bearable questionable diagnoses regarding space dementia and sunset seduction scenes involving the very strategic placement of animal crackers.

Oh, and Bay gets his token black extra in right at the very start, because when the end of the world comes, may we all be so lucky as to hear the news first out of Eddie Griffin’s mouth.

10:00: A second pair of volunteers agree to chug down a raw egg before racing each other to conduct five push-ups, resulting in an Aesop-worthy upset and no apparent puking.

"I've watched a lot of movies, Paul. I know what I'm doing." -Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), "Pain & Gain"

10:10: A cheeky video intro filmed by Bay himself for just this occasion, then “Pain & Gain.” What a strange thought that the explosion-meister’s “small movie” is redeemed in part for the sheer, thorough awfulness of its characters because Bay actually seems aware that these are, in fact, thoroughly awful people. Based on the true crimes of Miami’s Sun Gym gang in late 1994 and early 1995, “P&G” concerns itself with three materialistic men who might have very well gone on to worship Bay’s fetishistic stylings had they not been caught for their heinous and ultimately murderous efforts at extorting their richer clients.

Like “Killing Them Softly” set in sunnier climes, the film follows around fitness instructor Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) as he ropes bodybuilding buddies Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) and Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson, hilarious here) among others into sharing his own aggressive American dream. All involved were seemingly tempted towards their crimes due to a contagious combination of ambition and arrogance, and for a good while, Bay would seem to have fashioned a darkly funny condemnation of what some might think it takes in order to keep up with the Joneses, this in spite of his old knack for homophobia coming back to bite him on the ass. However, that cynicism finds itself counterbalanced by fewer and fewer laughs as “P&G” needlessly drags itself toward the two-hour mark, and what initially seems like a knowingly slick portrayal of successfully lunk-headed living comes perilously close to becoming a hollow exercise in non-stop cynicism.

When the Coen Brothers took a similar tack in both “Fargo” and “Burn After Reading,” they found these criminal misdeeds either tragically funny or just plain tragic. Bay doesn’t quite bring the same weight of moral authority to his picture, but when you look at the last two films he made about bad boys in Miami -- let alone any three films of his, viewed back-to-back-to-back -- “Pain & Gain” can’t help but resemble some measure of progress.