Movie review: 6 Underground

Was Michael Bay passed over for the Mission: Impossible gig?

Currently streaming on Netflix, 6 Underground feels like a desperate attempt to try out his own crack team of interchangeable agents franchise.

It is like a classic 80s TV concept turned into the most outlandish action film of 2005. It is fast, it is frenetic and yes, it feels about 15 years behind the pop culture curve.

How 2005? There is a key gag about the old THX cinema sound test.

Guy Ritchie-style splash (literally) screens introduce the team, each known by only a number and designation.

Otherwise, this is another of Bay's 13-year-old boy fever dreams. Big on explosions, cool lines, passers-by getting mowed down for laughs, blood, bodies splattered, gunfire.

There are also writhing lingerie-clad models but oddly no actual nudity, given the other excesses. It is like the film's adhering to Instagram's guidelines.

Ryan Reynolds plays Ryan Reynolds (glib wisecracks aplenty) as One, the billionaire leader of the gang.

He is not a great leader, it is not clear if he is meant to be, but his heart is sort of in the right place.

He wants to set the world right. Take out the really bad guys. Or at least people he says are bad.

After leading with a 20-minute car chase through Florence, it takes a while for the main coup plot to kick in.

While the general gist is clear, the ADHD editing keeps you from being too sure what exactly is going on. Generally, nothing happens unless it looks cool – or it would if it could stay on a shot for longer than a second.

The whole thing is cut like a trailer – a two-hour logic-defying trailer – and the micro blips waste the admittedly gorgeous cinematography.

This is the ultimate Bay watch. Even bicycles seem to explode here.

Also late to the game, Bay has become enamoured with those POV GoPro parkour videos where daredevils/idiots induce viewer vertigo by running and leaping along the pylons and precipices of skyscrapers.

There is even the classic Bay-ism of drugs being deadly to everyone else yet goofily intoxicating to our protagonists.

Maybe you need to have some level of intoxication to truly enjoy this.

This US$150 million (S$203 million) Netflix venture has its fans. But to many, this will just be a mess.

SCORE: 1.5/5

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FILM: 6 Underground

STARRING: Ryan Reynolds, Melanie Laurent, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ben Hardy, Adria Arjona, Dave Franco

DIRECTOR: Michael Bay

THE SKINNY: Six nameless agents, led by a mysterious billionaire (Reynolds), set out to usurp a Central Asian dictator and put his brother in charge.

RATING: R21