Summary
Michael Bay’s kitchen sink approach works just as well on the Netflix screen as it does in the multiplexes, amping up the carnage while providing some of the best pure action scenes we’ve seen in a while.
When you hear the term ‘a film by Michael Bay,’ there’s a certain level of expectation. Slow-motion turns, ridiculous explosions, improbable chases and semi-clad women. In Bay’s first film for Netflix, he ticks through his personal checklist of destruction like he’s running out of time.
Written by the Deadpool and Zombieland team of Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, one immediately wonders if it wasn’t so much a script they penned as a series of flashcards set to music. The first five minutes is like a trailer for the film we are about to see, although what follows – a 15 minute car chase that blows any other action scene of late out of the water – is pretty much par for the course.
What we eventually glean, from multiple flashbacks often inside other flashbacks, is that there is a group of elite folks from around the world who are led by an enigmatic billionaire known only as One (Ryan Reynolds). Declared dead by the world, together they topple governments and blow shit up.
After a series of Transformers films, Bay returns to his roots with 6 UNDERGROUND. By that, of course, we mean a reported $150 million dollar action fest in the vein of Bad Boys. It’s so self-aware it’s almost exhausting, from the often bizarre camera angles to the whiplash editing that takes us from Italy to Afghanistan to Savannah in under 30 seconds. Using his experience in the Victoria’s Secret commercial world, no opportunity for a butt in lingerie goes past Mr. Bay.
Yet for those who criticised Bay’s 13 Hours, and felt that it ignored the contributions of local people to the mission’s success, his latest film comes back with some strange politics. The primary mission is a coup of the fictional Turgistan and the installation of the dictator’s democratically-inclined brother as the new leader. The ‘good guys with guns’ argument is on shaky ground at the best of times, but here it seems to be suggesting that armed private citizens must act when governments fail.
The eclectic cast – that includes Corey Hawkins, Adria Arjona, Ben Hardy and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo alongside Reynolds – works surprising well together in that stock caper kind of way. If you had César Award Mélanie Laurent as an action hero on your 2019 Bingo Card, you win in more ways than one.
The true hero is naturally the Action Sequence, which in the case of 6 UNDERGROUND is something that starts several minutes in and continues for the remainder of the 128 minute runtime. While some of these take on a much crueller aspect than we’re used to from Bay – impaled bodies, exploding heads, flying teeth (all in slow-mo, of course) – it’s peak performance art. There’s an outstanding use of a Hong Kong construction set, a novel implementation of the THX sound test, and a magnetic motif on a boat must be seen to be believed.
Still, if you’re not prone to seizures brought on from rapid flashes, or the slightly bloodthirsty streak that seems to have taken over the king of carnage, this is probably the most fun you’re going to have with an action film this side of Christmas. With the door left wide open for a sequel, Netflix may just have their first blockbuster franchise on their hands.
2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Michael Bay | WRITERS: Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese | CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Mélanie Laurent, Corey Hawkins, Adria Arjona, Ben Hardy, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo | DISTRIBUTOR: Netflix| RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 13 December 2019 (Global)
