Ryan Hughes said:
So, he apologizes not for taking a true story about an innocent man who was kidnapped and tortured by hair-brained crooks, "Pain and Gain" and turning that into a bumbling crime comedy. Not for what he did to "Transformers." Not to the people that actually live in Armageddon -which is a lovely place that does not deserve its reputation. Instead, he apologizes for that. . . stay classy, Michael Bay.
Well, to be fair the story in "Pain and Gain" is based more on the story of the crooks combined with some of the more objective coverage to create characterizations, than the "victim". A big part of the protests are from the victim claiming he was innocent, when that doesn't entirely seem to be the case.
The basic story is largely one of a group of criminals, preying on another criminal, to steal the money he himself stole. This is the avenue the movie takes, with the entire story being sort of "What if the guys in an "Ocean" movie were a bunch of not too bright weight lifters, who ultimatly fail", based on the RL testimony of weightlifters involved in a real incident.
The "Victim" seems to largely be complaining because the movie portrays him as being a scumbag himself, which from the limited stuff I've seen about it, is probably true, but was never proven.
In short, I don't think Michael Bay has much to apologize for given the premise. It won't be the first crime drama based on real life incidents that has gotten complaints by the real people who were involved. Whether the movie will be good on it's own merits or not remains to be seen, but honestly as I'm not a huge Bay fan, I doubt it.
That said, in his entire filmography, I think Armageddon is one of the movies he least needs to apologize for. It's not one of my favorite movies by any means, but it was more passable than a lot of other things he did.