Netflix’s 6 Underground is Chocobo Racing without the Final Fantasy, Ars Technica

                              **********************                                                            Some of the extended parkour sequences in6 Undergroundare genuinely exciting, but Bay wouldn’t be Bay if he did throw in a bang-pow every now and again.                                                                                           

                               

                              **************                                                            Some of the comedy in the script lands — but for the most part, the deadpan humor of the subtitles overshadows it.                                                                                           

                               

                              

                                                            I didn’t think to listen carefully enough — but if there was aWilhelm Scream, there should’ve been.                                                                                           

              After a week of the preview blaring at me each time I opened the app, I finally watched Netflix’s new film6 Undergroundlast night. With Ryan Reynolds starring and a couple of funny wisecracking moments in the trailer, it’s easy to get your hopes up — but, for the most part, it’s a mistake. I don’t want to pan the movie too hard — I watched all two hours of it reasonably engrossed — but it’s not going to be something I remember next year, and it probably won’t be for anyone else, either.Reynolds plays a disaffected tech billionaire who decides he’s had enough of evil in the world. So he recruits a batch of misfits, each with a special talent, and takes on the bad guys — specifically, the fascist, dictatorial regime of semi-fictional country “Turgistan.” The real Turgistan was a province of the Sasanian Empire, located in present-day Pakistan, and it quit being a thing in AD. This bears little relation to6 Underground‘s Turgistan, which is a thinly veiled pastiche of Syria and Abu Dhabi — complete with the chemical-weapon-deploying dictator of the former and the insane opulence of the latter. Reynolds and his motley gang are on a self-assigned mission to kill the amoral, evil dictator and replace him with his moral, good brother. Subtle.

6 Undergroundtries very hard to be at least four different movies and never quite lands any one of them. The first twenty minutes are one stupendous urban car chase — effectively, an homage to ‘s(Ronin) ,but with lots more shiny stuff, CGI, and things that go boom. But whereRonindelivered jaw-droppingly satisfying technical driving,6 Undergroundjust fakes it with camera cuts, revving noises, and iffy jokes. Later, the film takes desultory, half-hearted stabs at beingOcean’s Eleven,Deadpool, andJarhead– but it can’t land any of those, either.Ryan Reynolds does manage to deliver a few of his trademark edgy barbs well enough for a chuckle, and some of them weren’t even in the trailer. The extended parkour sequences, (delivered) **************** by parkour collective Storror

, also deliver some real thrills. But the “oh, snap” moments are few and far between, sandwiched between failed jokes, thin plot, and stuff going boom. None of the other actors really get their characters far off the ground, but it’s hard to blame them — they weren’t given much to work with.I’d be pretty upset if I’d shelled out $ 12 for a ticket and another $ 16 for snacks to see this movie in a theater. But for all the negativity, it’s worth remembering that6 Undergroundis a free watch, if you’re already a Netflix customer — and viewers who enjoy Michael Bay’s signature bang-boom-camera-cut style of action direction might find it more enthralling than I did. Either way, at the low price of “free with subscription,” it’s hard to stay mad at it, and there are worse places — such as the entirely awfulBlackbear– to land in your endless Netflix scroll.        listing image by. ********************************** (Netflix)

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