The Background: As we're introduced to the main characters on an oil rig, we soon discover that AJ (Ben Affleck) is secretly dating his boss's daughter (Liv Tyler). So, when that boss, Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) finds out, he grabs his shotgun and goes hunting. On a highly flammable oil rig.
The Destruction: There's surprisingly little destruction, but there's a lot of noise, as Harry's gun shots ricochet around the oil rig while he hunts down AJ. The entire team are yelling for him to stop because he momentarily forgets that he's on an oil rig, firing a gun.
Drug dealers busted
The Background: While hunting for leads, Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) are pointed in the direction of a drug dealer's house. When they arrive, they get a bit of a hostile welcome, as a number of gang members open fire the two cops.
The Destruction: The house will need a new lick of paint, and the toilet won't be much good after it gets shot all over Martin Lawrence's face.
The gang members don't last long, as Lowrey uses a variety of techniques to shoot through and around the walls. Having said that, the destruction of the house may have been vast, but it was already in a state of disrepair to begin with.
Asteroid destroyed
The Background: The finale of Armageddon . When the team find out that they can't remotely detonate the asteroid, one of them must stay behind and detonate it on site, and it's A.J. who draws the short straw.
Harry Stamper shows him out, but when he gets outside, he pushes A.J. back onto the ship to go home and marry his daughter, Grace (Liv Tyler).
The Destruction: A whole asteroid and Bruce Willis. We aren't sure which one is harder to kill after seeing all of the Die Hard films, but it makes for a beautiful spectacle as a ring of blue light is emitted from the exploding rock.
Scorponok attacks
The Background: After escaping an attack on their base, the Navy SEALs team are ambushed in the desert by the Decepticon, Scorponok.
Scorponok, the only Transformer who never takes on a human-shaped form, hides under the ground a lot. So, when he bursts out of the ground, he takes the Navy SEALs by surprise and sends them scurrying for shelter.
The Destruction: A small village in the Middle East takes the brunt of the destruction, as the SEALs fire on Scorponok and call in an airstrike to destroy him once and for all.
Intersection shootout
The Background: Syd (Gabrielle Union) is on the run and crashes in the middle of an intersection. On one side are a number of gang members and on the other side, the police fight against them.
Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett crash the party to put the odds in the police's favour.
The Destruction: Cars, gang members, and a tailback that doesn't bear thinking about. The shoot-out lasts until those involved take off for an equally destructive car chase.
KKK shootout
The Background: Bad Boys 2 opens on this Ku Klux Klan meeting, where our heroes Mike and Marcus are undercover.
The two cops reveal themselves, stand back-to-back and have an almighty gun-fight with the troublesome Ku Klux Klan members who are also running a drugs operation.
The Destruction: Martin Lawrence's bumcheek takes a bullet and provides some 'humour' throughout the film. The KKK get wiped out, plenty of barrels get blown up, and Will Smith destroys the floor as he takes a twin-gunned leap through the air.
Transformer destroys US forces base
The Background: The film opens with this attack on US soil, kicking off the battle between humans and robots.
An unknown helicopter enters the radar of the US army, and when they tell the pilot to surrender, the vehicle stands up and unleashes a hail of bullets and missiles onto the base.
The Destruction: Big. The Transformer takes out a whole base, including planes, tanks, armoured vehicles, everything. They do, however, manage to stop the shapeshifting Decepticon from stealing all their information by cutting the hard-line.
Forest fight
The Background: After rescuing Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) and Leo Spitz (Ramon Rodriguez), Optimus Prime takes on three Decepticons at once in an all-out brawl in a forest. This scene was shot in the IMAX format.
The Destruction: Lots of trees are culled in this battle, as Optimus unleashes his glowing orange hook hands. Prime tears the face off a rival Decepticon before Megatron kills him, leaving Sam to be saved by Bumblebee and the 'racially insensitive' twin robots.
Hangar shootout
The Background: Julie (Tea Leoni) has been kidnapped by Fouchet (Tcheky Karyo), the film's key villain.
It's then up to Lowrey and Burnett to rescue Julie and prevent the drugs from being shipped. It all culminates in a shootout at an airfield, where there are strategically placed barrels aplenty.
The Destruction: Most of the hangar in the airfield gets taken out. Barrels are destroyed, platforms are well-placed for stuntmen to fall off, cars are written off: it's chaos. Once the dust settles, Fouchet takes off with Julie and Lowrey and Burnett give chase.
Shower-room shootout
The Background: John Mason (Sean Connery) has just led Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage) and his team into Alcatraz prison. The team sneak into the heavily-alarmed shower room, where they walk into an ambush by Brigadier General Francis X. Hummel (Ed Harris) and his team.
The Destruction: Every single Navy SEAL is killed in the onslaught plus loads of tiles, loads and loads of tiles. On the up-side, it sets up the dynamic of the Cage/Connery pairing as they're left to fend for themselves against the terrorists.
Destruction of Paris
The Background: The asteroid is getting angry and meteors are breaking away left, right and centre. New York has already been hit by a shower of a few smaller asteroids and now Paris takes a beating, with one huge boulder heading towards the capital of France.
The Destruction: Complete. Paris is wiped out in a cloud of dust as the asteroid takes out the city and then the resulting shockwave crumbles every building in the vicinity. It doesn't mess around, that asteroid.
Egyptian battle
The Background: Optimus Prime is dead, for the time-being, and Sam and Mikaela have the Matrix of Leadership in a bag and the Decepticons on their tail.
All the while, the US Forces are on their way to help out and Devastator is destroying a pyramid which houses the sun harvester.
The Destruction: Although most of the setting is already either destroyed or in disrepair, Michael Bay makes a solid attempt at razing what is left, which includes a whole pyramid and an ancient Egyptian tomb.
He certainly won't become a member of The National Trust at this rate.
Freeway car chase
The Background: Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson) and Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGregor) have managed to get away from their clone facility and are on their way to escaping, when they hitch a ride on a lorry transporting giant metal train wheels.
The resourceful pair buy some time by detaching the giant wheels and throwing them at their pursuers, including Albert Laurent (Djimon Hounsou).
The Destruction: Each of the train wheels weighs around a ton, so when they're released they take out a car at a time.
Around seven cars are wiped out by the giant, bouncing dumb-bells, plus one car is sliced clean in half by a sheet of metal.
An armoured car gets flipped front-ways, three years before Christopher Nolan flipped a whole lorry in The Dark Knight .
Destruction of Cuban slums
The Background: After the destruction of his mansion, Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla) takes off into the slums of Cuba.
Our two protagonists, Lowrey and Burnett, are in hot pursuit in a Hummer, driving straight through the slums with absolutely no regard for their surroundings or the health, wellbeing or property of the residents.
The Destruction: The living space of an entire community is wiped out in one fell swoop. The Hummer drives straight through home, after home taking out all of the houses and sending the odd explosion into the air.
Destruction of Pearl Harbour
The Background: It's based on a true story, but in case your history is rusty, Pearl Harbour got bombed by the Japanese Army during WW2. It's one of the most famous events of the 20th Century and Michael Bay made it the big set-piece in his film version.
The Destruction: Erm... Pearl Harbour is destroyed. It's dramatised by focussing on specific characters, but a lot of boats are taken out and the Japanese lose a lot of their own planes through kamikaze tactics.
Freeway car chase
The Background: After a shoot-out at an intersection, Lowrey and Burnett give chase to a drug cartel in a car-transporting lorry. Soon Lowrey's Ferrari is playing vehicular dodgeball as the crims unload the lorry's cargo in spectacular style.
The Destruction: This scene is everything that Michael Bay is about: it's noisy, shouty and there'll be a huge bill for written-off cars. A boat is knocked off a trailer and sent spinning down the freeway too, taking out cars in its path.
Meteors destroy New York
The Background: There's an asteroid heading for Earth to end the world and to show off what it can do, the film kicks off with a meteor shower on New York which makes a solid attempt at re-modelling the city.
The Destruction: The key building to be taken out is Grand Central Station, as meteors hurtle through the roof and send people scattering for cover.
The Empire State Building gets a particularly gnarly take-down as its top half comes flying towards the ground like a spear. In between, cars get flipped all over the place and skyscrapers are peppered with meteorological buckshot.
Battle of Mission City
The Background: Megatron has been unfrozen by his Decepticon cohorts and escaped from his prison of ice, and now he's heading towards Mission City on the hunt for Sam Witwicky and his Allspark.
In the ensuing battle, six Transformers are killed along with Megatron.
The Destruction: One of Michael Bay's biggest set-pieces, with an equally big destruction total: early every street is going to need a re-surfacing.
Many of the buildings in the area are reduced to rubble: one in particular has an Optimus Prime/Megatron fly-through. Six transformers in total are destroyed in the battle, and many cars and planes are taken out. An absolute mess.
San Francisco car chase
The Background: John Mason has been released from prison, but is under FBI supervision. He breaks free and takes off in a stolen Hummer, as Stanley Goodspeed lives up to his name and gives chase in a hi-jacked Ferrari and they tear up the streets of San Francisco.
The Destruction: Most of San Francisco's streets, stalls and cars, until finally, the whole chase culminates in a tram getting blown vertically into the air, before sliding down a hill and into Goodspeed's Ferrari.
Assault on a Cuban mansion
The Background: Marcus Burnett's sister and Mike Lowrey's girlfriend have been kidnapped by Johnny Tapia (Jordi Molla) after the latter is uncovered as an DEA agent.
It's then up to Mike, Marcus and a team of SWAT officers to find Tapia's mansion in Cuba and take the place apart.
The Destruction: Devastating. A remote-controlled car, a security post, some ornate walls, bits of swimming pool and an old woman's face are destroyed, and finally the mansion itself is blown up in a sea of machine gun fire.
