Netflix’s 6 Underground is Chocobo Racing without the Final Fantasy ~ USA Latest Games

Just in case anybody was wondering: yes, Michael Bay directed this movie. [credit: Netflix ]

After a week of the preview blaring at me each time I opened the app, I finally watched Netflix's new film 6 Underground last 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 651 AD. This bears little relation to 6 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 Underground tries 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 1998's Ronin, but with lots more shiny stuff, CGI, and things that go boom. But where Ronin delivered jaw-droppingly satisfying technical driving, 6 Underground just fakes it with camera cuts, revving noises, and iffy jokes. Later, the film takes desultory, half-hearted stabs at being Ocean's Eleven, Deadpool, and Jarhead—but it can't land any of those, either.

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