I'll still vouch for the first Bad Boys film and The Rock as pretty solid. Bad Boys, in particular, had some solid female characters such as Theresa Burnett and Sinclair (something Bay films hasn't had for a while) that held their own with the men. Plus, I dug the spin that Tea Leoni gave to her character. In lesser hands, we probably would have gotten a romance between her and Mike Lowry.
Those two movies got him that deal with Disney and he got bankrolled.