6 Underground

Michael Bay is back doing what he does best. A big noisy bombastic action film with nods to both the Fast and Furious movies and The Mission Impossible franchise. Number One (Ryan Reynolds) is some kind of wisecracking billionaire inventor and IT expert. He is a ghost which means he has died in this world and been reborn to make right all that is wrong in the world. Number One and his crack team of other ghosts set out to topple a brutal middle eastern dictator who is gassing his own people. It is all very slick although confusingly Abu Dhabi seems to be standing in for lots of other countries.

Good to see Bay leave the robots behind and go back to making big dumb actions movies for grown-ups again. I honestly don't remember what happened in the movie but I had a ton of fun watching the lunacy unfold. Reynolds is great as always. He plays the same character he always does and that's why we love him. The rest of the cast is... in it. They're fine but really the film is Reynold's wit and Bay's bombastic action. His best film in a long time. Not saying much but no one makes movies like Bay and it's enjoyable to see him cut lose again.

Okay action-thriller with comedy that more often than not actually lands, but Ryan Reynolds of course does a good enough job carrying this while the others in this ensemble were a bit forgettable. The plot feels slapped together with action set pieces not exactly flowing well one after the other, though some of the action, especially the first 15-minutes had all the Bayisms (in fact there's a score piece that he took from 13 Hours). I can't say I regretted watching but nothing I'd checking out again. **2.75/5** As a side, this is my first Netflix film as I just signed up and very much feels like filler material.