6 Underground

Directed by Michael Bay, 6 Underground follows a group of elite mercenaries, led by Ryan Reynolds’ One, as they set out to remove a brutal dictator from power. It’s clear right from the get-go that filmmaker Bay, working from a script by Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, isn’t looking to deliver anything other than a prototypical Michael Bay picture, as 6 Underground boasts (or suffers from) an exceedingly broad sensibility that’s reflected in its myriad of garish attributes – including loud, larger-than-life action sequences and an often excessively colorful and gaudy visual sensibility. There’s little doubt, then, that the movie’s tolerable atmosphere, which lasts right up until the predictably overlong and excessively action-packed third act, is due almost entirely to the efforts of a surprisingly solid cast, as Reynolds and company manage to elevate the proceedings on a fairly regular basis with their uniformly charismatic work (and it’s clear, too, that Wernick and Reese’s screenplay contains a handful of compelling moments that even Bay can’t ruin). The end result is a sporadically entertaining yet predominantly overblown actioner that hardly seems likely to win over Bay’s detractors, and it’s worth noting, too, that the film is, on top of everything else, saddled with a ludicrously padded-out runtime that ultimately does exacerbate its various problems.

** out of ****