6 Underground (2019)

I have never enjoyed a Michael Bay film. Not Bad Boys, not Pearl Harbor, not The Rock, not one Transformers movie (that he directed - I actually liked Bumblebee). His films are overblown and silly, overcompensating for their lack of intelligence with ridiculous explosions. Their stories are thin and filled with toxic masculinity. He makes bad movies.

I can no longer say all that is true. 6 Underground is the first time he's made a movie I enjoyed.

He starts with a fun idea (although not original, the idea behind the Secret Six comic is basically what this is). A billionaire puts together a team of highly skilled but emotionally wrecked agents to do the stuff official groups won't like taking out "truly evil" people like dictators. Reynolds (playing his usual smart ass shtick) is the billionaire and his team is made up of international actors I enjoy like Melanie Laurent and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. They go on a mission where they might not all survive. Stealing from Suicide Squad they kill off a lead early to make us know that we can't know for sure. Bay uses all his fancy camera tricks (slow mo, wind blowing, big explosions, you know the drill) to do something he's never done before; tell a fun story.

It's fun. It's light. It isn't insulting. I didn't think he had it in him.

Yes it's still incredibly over the top. But watching 6 Underground I came to understand that it wasn't the pyrotechnics and physic defying camera work that ruined his films for me. It was the stories he wanted to tell, stories that reinforced manchild values. When his story takes a different turn it can be quite watchable. This film is almost self-aware in the way it skewers the toxic masculinity found in this genre. There is an underlying message tied to ideas of chosen family and of seeking justice. But that's not quite all. It also is that the film's script is just that much smarter than a Bay film usually is, not that smart, but enough to make it all work. Watching his other work I always feel the films are talking down to me. I never got that from this film. 6 Underground is still simplistic just not in an insulting way.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I want a sequel.

6 Underground
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melanie Laurent, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Dave Franco, Adria Arjona, Corey Hawkins, Ben Hardy
Director: Michael Bay
Writers: Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese