Is Bay's pain our gain?

It must have pained Michael Bay to make a movie with so much ... potential.

So much apparent originality. So much (intentional) humor.

So much ... pizzazz.

Could this really be the Michael Bay we know and hate?

I'll believe it when I see it, and I may actually see Pain & Gain. Why not? Even if there weren't some dream casting here (Dawyne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris), movies about gonzo Floridians always have a special verve about them. (I'm still thinking about Spring Breakers more than you'd think I'd be thinking about a movie I saw three-and-a-half weeks ago.)

Could I secretly, maybe, want Michael Bay to prove he's worth something? I don't know, out of some unlikely affection for the original Transformers movie and The Rock?

I won't go that far. But I may go as far as to plunk down my money at the box office of a local multiplex, to watch a movie about clueless steroid freaks who get in over their heads and pull off capers that will certainly result in numerous absurdly comical deaths.

Somehow I've managed to see the trailer only once, too, which means the best parts haven't really been ruined for me through sheer saturation.

I guess there are benefits to only getting out to the theater a half-dozen times so far in 2013.