6 Underground
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In my review of Babylon I claimed that it was 1941 of Damien Chazelle. But there is one filmmaker that makes 1941s all the time. And his name is Michael Bay.
If you want to distill the essence of Michael Bay, you should not look any further than his Verizon Commercial. A 30 second long explosive fest of absolute Bayhem, directed by Michael Bay and starring Michael Bay. He knows that he is a meme. And he delivers on that meme.
His 2019 film 6 Underground is another good example of the self aware Bayhem from Michael. There was a lot of talk about his later film Ambulance and how out of nowhere good it is. But the core story idea in Ambulance is present in 6 Underground.
Ambulance is a feature length chase scene, where in the back of the car a doctor is doing a surgery on a person. In 6 Undergound the first scene is 20 or something minute long chase scene where in the back of the car a doctor is doing a surgery. In 6 Underground the doctor is played by Adria Arjona and in Ambulance the doctor is played by Eiza Gonzalez which is interesting and perhaps was intentional. Since both actresses look so much alike that a lot of people confuse the two. Michael Bay is self-referencing here again.
One more thing that is the same in the two films is the inclusion of Bay's dog into the shots. But while in Ambulance the dog effects the plot, in 6 Underground it's there just for a shot or two.
6 Underground is Michael Bay's attempt at non-linear story structure. And this is perhaps the only movie he ever did where the story is non-linear to such an extend. There is some non-linearity in Transformers films. But there the non linear parts are mostly just stories told by characters. While in this movie, it's a stylistic decision. Perhaps Bay felt like he could try being Christopher Nolan for a bit. To be quite frank the first time I saw 6 Underground I was quite confused what is happening when. But if you pay attention of the text on the screen ( because unlike Nolan, Bay actually tells the audience what happens when and where with title cards ) you will be less confused about things.
I don't know what to think about the direction and editing of the film. It is very strong in terms of how awesome everything is. But he doesn't care much, it seems, about basic techniques of following action. And therefor it might be a bit complex to try and understand exactly what is going on. If you really concentrate, it will be possible, but he is not helping you at all. He disregards the 180 rule for example. Making some cuts very confusing. It's not that big of a deal if it's done in a slow scene. But during a high speed, high energy action scene, when you flip to the other side of the action ( crossing the 180 line ) you need to have a crossing shot specifically designed to adjust the audience to the change of the perspective. Or at least design the two shots in such a way that the cut would be the crossing action itself. For example you can start panning right in the first shot, cut, the camera pans left in the second shot. Visually telling you that the action just changed sides. But Michael Bay seems to throw the whole concept of a 180 rule out of the window. And while sometimes ( because objects move from one side of the frame to the other ) it works. The other times it seems weird and confusing. Though, to be quite frank, the action he portrays seems to be deliberately chaotic. Sometimes he does want you to pay attention to the geometry of the scene. But maybe not too much attention, because the concepts of those scenes would break apart if you think too analytically about it. For example there is a guy running on the buildings while the other half of the team drives quickly in a car under him. And he somehow manages to be in front of the car multiple times. In which case Michael Bay could employ a bit of confusion to mask the inconsistencies of the action. A lot of chase scenes jump places very rapidly because of the availability of locations. They could be shooting on one street and then suddenly cut to a street very far away from the first street. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Baby Driver did that and it's awesome. I did that myself in The Package, The Car & The Time Is Running Out where the same intersection appears twice as two different locations.
Also another weird thing Michael Bay does here is pumping up action with stupidity that is probably born more from his self-awareness than from something that would make sense for the movie. Like sometimes cars just flip out of nowhere with a bunch of sparks and huge explosions, just because Michael Bay.
Writing-wise the movie suffers from the new trend of sincerity avoidance. You know how in the older films if a character is sad, we should also feel sad with the character. Michael Bay was consistent with his sincerity for the most part in his older movies and even in Ambulance. But since 6 Underground is starring Ryan Reynolds there is a lot of joking around people feeling things. Even though he still tries to get the core idea of the film to be sincere. Which is that people are more important than the mission. Ryan Reynolds's character was brilliantly cast to be the guy that challenges the idea of sincerity. Perhaps there is another layer of complexity to this movie that I didn't see because of the all of booms and butts.
The movie could be not your cup of tea if you are sensitive to the middle east politics because it is very much about it. The movie stars an Israeli actor Lior Raz ( Hebrew: ליאור רז ) as the villain of the movie. The dictator of Turgistan. The actor himself is a real life bad-ass. He was once a bodyguard of Arnold Schwarzenegger. And during the October 7th attack by Hamas, he went into Sderot ( a city near the Gaza Strip ) to help with rescue operations there. Which is much cooler than just hanging out with the military there as Quentin Tarantino did.
His brother in the movie was played by an Iranian Actor Peyman Maadi ( Persian: پیمان معادی ) which is an interesting selection of actors. He plays a democracy loving person and therefor being held in a kind of prison by the character of Lior Raz. So Michael Bay perhaps tried to give a nuanced look on the Israel-Palestine conflict in that way. Because one actor is from Israel ( a democracy loving country ) but he plays a dictator. And the other actor is from Iran ( a dictatorship ) but he plays a democracy loving person. Hm...
The movie has a scene in the middle where it is hinted at a sequel. It shows a line of hidden faces. And only one of them is revealed to be the primary bad guy of this film. Hinting on future installments with the other faces being the other bad guys. But other than that the movie plays like a stand alone picture. Which is respectful in the age of Marvel.
If all you know about Michael Bay is his Transformers movies, prepare! Transformers were all designed to get a specific age rating. Therefor he couldn't unleash the full bayhem onto those films. This one reminds Bad Boys with how gruesome it sometimes could be. People die brutally all the time in this film. Sometimes while having sex. Because Michael Bay. There was a scene of a guy pissing, then being shot to death, and finally falling into his piss. Because Michael Bay. There is a scene of a guy driving a car into a forklift and dying from a bit metal piece piercing through his chest. Because Michael Bay. There is a scene of a full camp of sick people and children being bombed by air raid. Because Michael Bay.
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