6 Underground

These reviewers who watch a Michael Bay movie and review it as if they were expecting Shakespeare need to stop reviewing. Seriously. The only reason to watch his flicks are so you can leave your brain at the door, turn off the lights, turn up the surround sound to 100 and sit back and watch $hit blow up. You want a thinking person's movie? Go see something else. You want your brain mushed then watch this! Was awesome, funny, action filled, fast cars, explosions, I was blowing bubbles out of my ears. Such fun.

So you have had a long tough week at work. It's Friday, and you want to escape your work life. You open a bottle of wine, pour a glass and put a movie on. You have escaped the dire reality of 9-5. This film is a perfect release, it has action, it has Ryan Reynolds based humour. It will never be an Oscar nominee for best picture, but hey, it's Friday night, you have a glass of wine in your hand and you want to release the week. At times it felt like a film By numbers but nowadays it is extremely rare not too. So please, enjoy the film for what it is. It's action. It's fun. It's Friday night so enjoy.

Michael Bay Deluxe, the BOOM, the POW and Ryan Reynolds. It's just about what I was expecting - mindless action, shallow story, (mostly) bland comedy, cliché characters & Reynolds doing his usual shtick. The explosions, gunfights and chases are a little less awesome on the streaming screen, but still deliver the manly blockbuster entertainment we came for in the first place.

The generic nature of the trailers, all of them, lowered the expectations to levels that ultimately helped enjoy the actual movie more. Naturally, the most valued card in the deck of "6 Underground" is the action - it has it all, from gunfights, to explosions, to flying, diving, car chases, parkour and so on. Great stunt work, expensive and well done cgi - no doubt about these things. What helped all that even more was a pretty generous splash of blood and gore. Could've pushed out even more, given the R rating. You can probably guess that it is by no means a realistic action movie, and you're right. That, and also, while the action is consistent, the impact and enjoyment of it is not - therefore pacing stutters, at times. The story is familiar and quite generic, depthless and Hollywood-in-a-nutshell by all standards. Nothing much more to add, the good guys battle and take down the evil guy, the usual. Our team of heroes consist of cliché characters, portrayed by decent actors having to do only either stunts or humorous dialogue. Ryan Reynolds portrays a more watered down version of all his latest roles conjoined & the comedy in "6 Underground" is hit & miss, mostly just bland and uninspired. I imagine there'll be complaints about the cinematography - it can be head-spinning and some of the cuts are questionable, but as a sum it's more than alright, not the biggest of flaws.

It is rather sad that I was expecting so little (I mean, slightly above average) and that it's exactly what I got. I believe that, even with all the bad etched-in-stone reputation, mr. Michael Bay can do better than this, has done better than this. That being said, "6 Underground" is by no means a 'bad' movie, it's your typical, loud, shiny action-packed blockbuster, with a good cast and big enough budget for you to get some kicks out of it. My rating: 6/10.

This is a typical modern Michael Bay film, it's all style over substance. Leave your brain at the door and you might enjoy it, I wish I did but I didn't.

I'll give you a quick example of what to expect while trying to explain why I couldn't bring myself to enjoy this film. Opening scene is a 15 minute car chase through a city. Firstly, the vehicle they choose to use as a getaway vehicle is a bright neon green Alfa Romeo that sticks out in the crowd like a sore thumb driving a bright neon green sports car would. Why would anyone choose this as a getaway vehicle instead of a car with a paint job a bit more inconspicuous I hear you ask? Because it's a Michael Bay film that's why, and it's all about style remember? Secondly, every car and bike that crashes during the chase produces enough sparks and fire to rival the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, plus the sounds they make when they crash are the most ridiculous Transformers sounding noises I have ever heard outside of a Transformers movie. And lastly, the bright neon green sports car gets scratched up by another vehicle and the drivers side mirror gets knocked off, but the next shot it's back on again, then it's off, then it's on, and it switches between broken and not broken a dozen or so times before someone decided that for continuity sake we better just stick to one or the other and thankfully they chose to go with the broken one. Pretty sloppy filmmaking really, and this is all in the opening 15 - 20 minutes, and unfortunately I can't turn my brain off enough to enjoy a film like that.

Other things that I didn't like about the film, the overall story is laughable and makes absolutely no sense at all, and when I say no sense I'm not being hyperbolic I mean it makes no sense, from the people he chooses to join his team to the way he recruits them to the missions they do it's all so ludicrous, if you allow yourself to question its logic for even one second then the entire thing falls apart. It's got your typical Michael Bay hit or miss humor along with other "Bayerisms" that we've come to expect from him, like the over use of quick cuts during action sequences, low angle shots of women in short skirts, so much slow motion that if the slow motion parts were at normal speed I reckon the film would be about half an hour shorter than it is, and scenes that are meant to be emotional and pull on your heart strings but because every character has no depth to them they end up having about as much emotional impact as a carpet cleaning commercial does.

What I did like. CGI people getting hit by cars and caught in explosions and thrown around and stuff, it was completely overused but the first few times it happened it looked quite good, especially people getting side swiped by vehicles. Some of the bad guy kills were well done. I enjoyed most of the banter between Ryan Reynolds and the non Ryan Reynolds actors, it was funny and was just Ryan Reynolds being your typical Ryan Reynolds which is good if you like Ryan Reynolds and I like Ryan Reynolds. Who doesn't like Ryan Reynolds? Hugh Jackman that's who, the Canadian fraud.

It really is just a film full of loud noises, bright colors, explosions and little of anything else.

Does the name Michael Bay tell you something? Do you feel like you know the movies he does and do you like them? If you answer yes to both, congratulations. To be honest more often than not I'm not down with movies that really do not give you much in the department of character development. But this is Bay and the action is terrific.

My home entertainment system had a run for its money! The visuals were stunning too (as usual with Bay) and you had more one liners than actual text (might not be entirely correct on that, but it sure feels like it). So a lot bang for your buck and no substance. Does that sound like a movie that will entertain you, without you having to think too much? Then go ahead and enjoy. Do not snob the people who do though, the casting makes up for some of the flaws at least ...