Every once in awhile, a near perfect action movie comes together that's a flawlessly blended cocktail of brainless action, humorous one-liners and massive scale scenes that stun you with their creativity.
6 UNDERGROUND is one of those perfect start-of-summer drinks for me.
Ryan Reynolds brings all his "Deadpool" wit to the role of tech billionaire ONE, self funding political coups and taking down global bad guys.
The opening 20 minutes sets the tone, with a long, exciting and stunning car chase across Florence that looks like it cost about $20 million to shoot. The violence is graphic, the stunts are gloriously over the top and it manages to introduce our team.
Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) is TWO, a lethal assassin. Manuel Garcia-Ruflo (The Magnificent Seven) is THREE, a huge, hulking hitman, Ben Hardy (XMEN, Bohemian Rhapsody) is FOUR, a free-running skywalker who opens the film running down and over the Piazza del Duomo in Florence. Talk about jaw-dropping.
Adria Arjona (True Detective) is FIVE, a doctor who spends most of the film getting sprayed with blood from her team's bullet wounds and Dave Franco is getaway driver SIX, whose love of Brittany Spears gets big laughs in the opening chase scene.
Corey Hawkins (24, Kong Island) joins the team as a sniper when one of the original fall.
It's the perfect set up for action, as ONE's high tech gadgets and limitless resources allow them to travel the world like Ethan Hunt's team in Mission Impossible, with Bruce Wayne's gadgets and James Bond's charm. Bay manages to channel the kinetic energy of Asian action masterpiece"The Raid" over the entire piece.
Director Michael Bay layers the $150 budget from Netflix across every scene. The opening Florence sequence would be the climax of most films, but it's just his appetizer here, with a kidnapping from the penthouse of a Hong Kong skyscraper another stunner of explosives, stuntwork and bullets.
I didn't know how they were going to top themselves, but the finale aboard a dictators mega-yacht that makes Jerry Jones's yacht look like a rowboat hits new heights.
When I tell you that ONE has a new gadget that turns the entire yacht into a super conducting magnet, that sounds cool, but what Bay and his stunt and special effects teams do with that concept is pretty amazing.
Reynolds is re-teamed with his "Deadpool" screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese, who deliver huge laughs and a little heart along with eye-popping (literally) action.
I loved this movie. Watch it on the biggest screen you can and crank up the sound system, it's one hell of a ride.
6 UNDERGROUND gets an A.
Here's hoping this team reunites for another adventure. We'll be there opening night...or at least whatever night it starts streaming!
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