6 Underground: Very Dumb, Very Loud, Very Michael Bay, Very... Self-Aware?

Jeff D Lowe12/17/2019 3:02 PM

Netflix released a Michael Bay movie. Need we say more?

Six individuals from all around the globe, each the very best at what they do, have been chosen not only for their skill, but for a unique desire to delete their pasts to change the future.

Jeff D Lowe (44/100): Netflix’s big original Michael Bay movie is dumb and obnoxious but also possibly self-aware and fun at times? Is ‘6 Underground’ meta on purpose? Maybe? Maybe not? One thing is for sure, though, it is loud as hell with a ton of over-the-top action.

There is no question that ‘6 Underground’ is carried by the big star brought on board: Ryan Reynolds. It has gotten to the point in Reynolds’ career where, no matter how good or bad the movie ends up being, he is always going to turn in a funny, engaging performance. There is a charisma and line delivery that always plays with Reynolds, especially when the movie leans more in the action-comedy zone.

The problem with this movie is that there is just too much of… everything. Michael Bay is let loose with ‘6 Underground’, so much to the point that Netflix marketed the movie as “the most Michael Bay movie ever.” What I can’t tell is if Bay genuinely made this movie or meme’d himself as the marketing suggests. Did Netflix see the movie and then change their strategy? Possibly so, but there’s no question for me that, regardless of how meta it may be, ‘6 Underground’ was not a good movie. It’s the noisiest movie I have seen since Bay’s last Transformers movie. Which, as you may be aware, is a headache-inducing time…

‘6 Underground’ really scrapes and claws to earn its 44/100 score for me. There are enough funny moments and bits to give it life and now and then the action moments might pique your interest. But I can’t say that a movie with a “rad” GoPro parkour scene is going to do much to impress me in 2019. Everything in the movie is shot in that classic Michael bay close-up, slow-motion, shaky action style that is incredibly played out. Again, this might be the intention of the movie, but I must say, there’s a chance this could have been a solid action movie with some more nuanced directing.

In terms of story and acting, everything is fairly basic with ‘6 Underground’, it just comes down to the fact that the movie is a two-hour vessel (including a 16-minute car chase to open the movie) for every Michael Bay action trope we’ve ever seen. It’s a long two hours, too, I had no issues with ‘The Irishman’ but checked the time on ‘6 Underground’ on two or three different occasions. Speaking of “classic Michael Bay,” every character in all his movies look moist as hell. They’re all so damn sweaty as they bake under the orange-ish tint of his style.

Oh, also, the soundtrack was like something straight out of a mid-2000’s sports video game.

‘6 Underground’ benefits from being a Netflix movie. You won’t have to invest too much emotion in whether you felt as though you wasted your time and money, so that… helps? It isn’t close to the worst movie I saw in 2019, and some people may find it entertaining, but I also think I got a hangover just from watching it.

KenJac (51/100): What was advertised to us as “The most Michael Bay movie of all time” is, in fact, the most Michael Bay movie of all time. Big loud explosions, a shitty plot and lame dialogue are what I expected going into it, and that’s exactly what we were given. We talk about turn-off-your-brain movies all the time on Lights Camera Barstool, but this tries to be too deep to give it that description.

Ryan Reynolds is the star of this movie, and he is basically the only actor trusted to deliver lines throughout the movie. It also stars recognizable names like Mélanie Laurent (‘Inglourious Basterds’), Dave Franco (‘22 Jump Street’) and Corey Hawkins (‘Straight Outta Compton’), but none of them are given much room to use their talents. The dialogue is a combination of one-liners, bad jokes, and ham-fisted exposition which, again, would be ok if this movie didn’t take itself a little too seriously. They spend a LOT of time trying to flesh out these characters and give them pathos or whatever, but it just doesn’t work.

On the pod, Trillballins described this movie as “the first film ever written at the Pike house by Brad.” That’s completely accurate. The whole plot revolves around these 6 people who are sick of the corruption by our government, allowing shitty dictators to exist in return for natural resources, perks, etc. Like, okay, cool. Their solution, you ask? Stage a coup to replace the dictator with a new one. An idea so simple it must work right? Like the 5000 times, the CIA has done it? Ryan Reynolds essentially plays what Brad thinks of himself. He’s hot, rich, super smart, gets laid and shoots the hell out of some guns. Beast mode. Brad Reynolds leads his group of elite random people to overthrow this regime, but instead of this happening in a linear fashion, we end up with a weird reverse to the central situation. There is a series of flashbacks to give you background on every single member of the team, which means we don’t actually start the movie until about 45 minutes in. The back half of it is fun, and the action overall is cool, but it’s so typically over the top while simultaneously taking itself too seriously with the backstories and motivations.

There are some fun fights, cool guns and explosions like you might expect from Mr. Transformer himself. At the end of the day, though, it’s a bummer. If this was a linear, shoot’em up action flick that was more self-aware, this would be an easy 75ish overall movie. Instead, it’s a slapped together burn of $150 million dollars.

By the way, don’t even get me started on the terrible soundtrack.

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The movie is Officially Not Buttered after a bunch of middle of the road scores. We did an in-depth review of the movie on Lights Camera Barstool, including thoughts from Trillballins. Make sure to rate all 2019 and 2018 movies in the links below.

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